David Brancaccio

Let's start with a number from UCLA, $27 billion.

That's the value of all the homes wiped out by the California wildfires a year ago.

That's the typical cost of those homes before the fires, multiplied by the more than 12,000 homes gone.

Now, this week here, I'm taking those big numbers and bringing them down to street level.

A street in the community of Altadena, 20 minutes northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

On a single block, 15 houses were total losses.

Now, one of those 15 was my house, but I wanted to hear from my neighbors.

Louis lived on my side of the street, South Corner.

When the initial shock of escaping flying embers morphed into talk of what's next, Louis and his wife were all in, gung-ho.

The planning department would let you go 200 square foot bigger.

Three months later, a new surprise, one both delightful and daunting.

Some neighbors asked for first names only for this so they could speak more freely with insurance and other financial matters in flux.

Louie does marketing for one of the cable and streaming TV channels, a man who could see he had a plot twist on his hands.

There's also a dog who might run outside and bring into the house soot containing who knows what.

Remember, this wasn't a forest fire that consumed natural wooden brush.

It was an urban fire where smoke contained, I don't know, SUVs and whatever else was piled up in people's garages and attics.

When the neighbors on my burned-out street gather occasionally in a local park for iced tea and tamales to try to hold each other in the light, we all agree that rebuilding after this fire is like being enrolled at gunpoint in a master's degree program in construction and insurance management.

For Louie and his wife, a shocking year that started with an urban fire driven by hurricane force winds becomes a new year with a bigger family.

The boy is great.

They all live in a rental two towns over.