We’ve all heard the expression “baptism by fire.” But perhaps that phrase has never been more apropos than of a handful of recently elected lawmakers from Los Angeles County who, just days or weeks into their new roles, found themselves responding to the most catastrophic set of wildfires in L.A. history.
These lawmakers — Assemblymember John Harabedian, Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez and Reps. George Whitesides and Luz Rivas — all represent communities that saw wildfires break out during last month’s devastating windstorms.
Over the past several weeks, they’ve been thrust into crisis response mode even as they’re still learning to navigate the halls of the state or U.S. capitol buildings and figuring out how things get done in Sacramento or Washington, D.C.
“I thought my January would look like a typical new legislator’s schedule — hiring staff, getting to know my colleagues and trying to learn as much about a new workplace, just easing my way into legislative sessions,” Harabedian, a Democrat whose district includes Altadena and Pasadena, said during a recent interview.
Though January turned out to be much more intense than expected, as a public servant, the Assembly member views it as par for the course.
“We didn’t necessarily get an easy transition into this job, but we’re here to solve problems,” he said.
Pérez agrees.
She was still hiring staff and getting to know those new hires when the fires erupted. One staff member’s first day on the job was helping out at an evacuation center. Another staffer’s first day involved meeting with displaced residents at a town hall. Two other staff members’ official start date hadn’t arrived, but still, they volunteered to help out.
“It has literally been trial by fire, not just for me but for my entire team,” she said. “We all got thrust into this.”
Harabedian and Pérez were sworn into office in December. But it wasn’t until Jan. 6 that they spent their first full day in Sacramento when the legislature reconvened in the new year.
They figured they would have a bit of time to ease into their new roles.
But on Jan. 7, their second day in Sacramento, Harabedian and Pérez, along with other legislators from L.A. County, followed the news anxiously as multiple wildfires broke out — first in Pacific Palisades, then in Altadena in the San Gabriel Valley, followed by Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley.
On the other side of the country, the new members of Congress had just been sworn in, four days before the first fires broke out.
Like the two state legislators, Whitesides and Rivas scrambled to get home to their communities.
We spoke to each of the four recently elected officials about their first several weeks in office — how they had to drop everything and pivot in response to the wildfires, how prepared they felt for handling a disaster of such magnitude, and whether what’s transpired has shifted their legislative priorities.
Below are their reflections.
Assemblymember John Harabedian
Harabedian, D-Pasadena, tried booking a flight back home on Tuesday, Jan. 7, as news was breaking about the fires, but planes were grounded due to heavy smoke in the L.A. region.
Desperate, he and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, rented a car the following morning and drove for several hours back to L.A. County. On their drive down, the two passed multiple firetrucks from different parts of the state — also making their way to L.A. County, on missions to help fight the blazes.
Once back, Harabedian spent the next several days out in the community, distributing water to wildfire victims, holding press conferences and media interviews, meeting with Gov. Gavin Newsom and other elected officials who came to survey the damage, and providing regular updates about the Eaton fire on social media.
Then there was the new legislation to draft.
Both Harabedian and Pérez represent residents in Altadena and Pasadena whose homes and businesses were swallowed up by the Eaton fire. They have both since introduced bills to help victims recover.
Despite prior experience as an elected official — Harabedian served on the Sierra Madre City Council and was mayor of that city — he said nothing can prepare one for the level of devastation caused by the recent wildfires.
At the same time, he feels he was able to draw lessons about crisis management from his time on the City Council during the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You had to learn very quickly to be a clear, concise communicator. That’s the key to leadership. … I think that was a good training ground,” he said.
Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez
Perez, D-Pasadena, considers herself an aggressive planner. So when her plans for her first full month in office were upended by the wildfires, it was more than just a small wrinkle.
Not to mention the emotional toll that came with having family members, friends and other people she knew forced to evacuate from their homes.
“It has just been so shocking and so frustrating. The first week or two, I just kept thinking I was going to wake up, and it was going to have been a bad dream,” she said.
To some degree, though, Pérez went into the situation already knowing what it’s like to have people turn to her for leadership and guidance while operating seemingly under a microscope.
In January 2023, a mass shooting took place at a dance hall in Monterey Park. The gunman then traveled to another dance studio in neighboring Alhambra, where he was confronted and disarmed by a man whose family owned the dance studio.
“We had this happen, and it was like every news station in the entire world was suddenly descending upon our communities,” recounted Pérez, who was on the Alhambra City Council at the time.
While the situations are different, that 2023 experience showed her what it meant to lead in times of tragedy and with many eyes watching.
Pérez and her staff similarly spent those first few days of the L.A. fires in crisis response mode, posting regular updates — sometimes past 2 a.m. — on social media to inform residents about evacuation orders, school closures and other relevant information; meeting with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and firefighters; serving meals in the community; and holding meetings to discuss recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Given the need to pivot her attention, Pérez acknowledged that issues she had hoped to tackle earlier in her tenure in the Senate — including education, public safety, housing and homelessness —may take longer to get to now.
“Now my (legislative) package is primarily focused on wildfire and will be primarily focused on wildfire,” she said.
“I’ll get to do and work on all the areas I’d like to work on. It just won’t necessarily be on the timeline that I expected it to be,” she added. “I’ll have to spread those things out. … That’s just the reality of the situation.”
Rep. Luz Rivas
Rivas was just days into her new job as a congresswoman when the Hurst fire broke out in Sylmar, in the northern part of her San Fernando Valley district.
Although that fire was contained more quickly than the Palisades and Eaton fires, the collective grief and anxiety from so many fires occurring almost simultaneously and all relatively nearby was still a lot to take in.
“I was in the California Legislature for 6½ years. We had several large wildfires so it wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me. There was one in Sylmar in 2019,” said Rivas. “But what I didn’t expect was the costliest wildfire in L.A. history would happen in my first month in Congress. These were definitely very different than past wildfires.”
Speaking of her time in Sacramento, Rivas spent part of it chairing the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, where wildfire resiliency became a regular topic among members, she said.
Likely because of her background in the Assembly, Rivas was appointed to the House Committee on Natural Resources and later named to two subcommittees last month that tackle the climate crisis and water preservation.
As the only Latina in Congress with a STEM background, Rivas, who has a degree in engineering, was also recently named co-chair of the Congressional STEM Education Caucus.
She said she plans to use her time in Congress to call attention to climate change and other environmental issues. Many residents across L.A. County had to contend with poor air quality for days after the fires started, she noted.
“I definitely want to continue working on the effects that climate change has in our communities and the wildfires. Environmental justice has always been a priority for me,” Rivas said.
As far as navigating the ropes of Congress, the Democrat said she’s focused on securing federal disaster aid for Southern California. Democrats have been fighting back against President Donald Trump and other Republicans who have suggested that such aid should come with strings — including demanding changes to California policies, some of which have nothing to do with wildfires. One example is Trump’s suggestion that California require voters’ ID during elections.
“Our priority has been to ensure that we deliver federal aid without any conditions. We don’t want this to be used as a weapon against Democrats,” Rivas said.
Rep. George Whitesides
Whitesides, D-Santa Clarita, had just been sworn into office four days before the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires broke out.
But unlike Harabedian, Pérez or Rivas, Whitesides had never held elected office before at any government level.
Still, Whitesides entered office with extensive knowledge about wildfires. He is the co-founder of Megafire Action, an organization that advocates for policies to combat massive wildfires that have become more frequent.
“I ran for Congress partly because I was very concerned that we need to do more to protect our communities from the threat of catastrophic wildfires,” said Whitesides. “Was I surprised that we would get the thing that I was so worried about within the first week of my time in Congress? Yes. But was I surprised it could happen? No.”
In fact, the fires kept coming.
Fifteen days after the first wildfires erupted in L.A. County, the Hughes fire broke out near Castaic Lake in Whitesides’ congressional district. Though no lives were lost — nor did entire communities become piles of rubble as was the case with the Palisades and Eaton fires — tens of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate.
For Whitesides, it underscored the urgent need, as he sees it, to talk about wildfire mitigation and climate change.
From designing communities differently to protect them from disasters to structuring the insurance market differently so people can have their homes insured to compensating properly wildland firefighters and others who work the frontlines, Whitesides said there is much to do.
Since last month’s fires, Whitesides — who recalls speaking at every campaign event while running for office about the threat of wildfires — said more people are contemplating these issues. He’s hoping to leverage this moment to advance policies that have been part of his legislative priorities from the onset.
“More people are thinking about it, and people are thinking about it across the aisle,” said Whitesides, adding that he hopes to help connect the dots so people understand that severe weather events are a challenge that Americans in all parts of the country face.
“What I am hoping to do is to make a linkage between wildfires on the West Coast and hurricanes on the East Coast and tornadoes in the Midwest,” he said. “We are all going to be confronted by these weather events.”