They are drawn to the Altadena foothills by hummingbirds, bats and peacocks. It's a view of the canyon, downtown skyscrapers, and Santa Catalina Island, somehow all in one frame.

Everyone on Leilani Road knows the risks of living in the fire-prone foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The benefits far outweigh them.

"The ability to be close to wild lands is more than just a scary threat," said Erik Ghenoiu, who enjoys walking his dog on the trail every day. “That’s part of what we all love about it.”

But residents said they were given a brutal reminder of the risks last week as they watched flames leap from the foothills, making their oak-dotted shelters look like the surface of the moon. Gnoyo's home is gone. So did most of his neighbors.

As thousands of distraught homeowners consider rebuilding, residents of this tight-knit street are forced to confront an even more worrisome question - not only should they rebuild, but they should rebuild in an area that is likely to burn again .

"We're obviously in a bind. ... There's a part of you that wants to do it right away. There's a part of you that doesn't even want to think about rebuilding in the same place," Genoyu said. “Should we be building in these locations?

Los Angeles County officials have been trying to stop people from doing this for years. Planning agency scores victory a month before Altadena fire aisle A zoning update that has been years in the making. It prohibits the construction of more homes in large unincorporated tracts of the western San Gabriel Valley that the state has designated as “Very high fire hazard critical area. "

That includes the Altadena foothills, where at least two people died in the Eaton Fire, according to addresses provided by the coroner.

Amy Bodek, director of the county's planning department, said the plan would not impact homeowners who just want to rebuild rather than add to their homes in these vulnerable areas.

"We absolutely support an individual's right to rebuild and will do whatever we can to help them," she said.

But at the same time, the county’s position is clear: It doesn’t want more people living in the foothills.

"It's a legitimate dilemma," Bodecker said.

It's a question the county will be grappling with for the foreseeable future: How to balance the need to rebuild quickly while preventing homes in areas that might burn again?

“California’s fire crisis is inextricably linked to its housing crisis,” said Robert Olshansky, an expert on post-disaster planning and relocation. "There really aren't a lot of attractive options other than where they can go."

Architectural historian Gnoyu said he believed there was a way to rebuild more intelligently. Covered windows, hardscaping, fire vents and siding were all high on his wish list.

His neighbors had the same hope. They just don't know if insurance payments will be enough to make these improvements a reality.

“It’s going to be very expensive to do the right thing in California,” said Taylor Zann, a content designer who builds her own homes. "We're not spending enough to cover it, so I just don't know what we're going to do."

Leilani Way, a refuge for local residents, is a dead-end offshoot of the Chaney Trail so remote that an Uber driver could never find it. It is now destroyed beyond recognition.

Zane's home, the product of four years of labor that he said familiarized him with the placement of every stud, is now reduced to rubble, its medieval vaulted ceiling gone and its metal roof crumpled on the ground. Much of his neighbor's property contained similar piles of ash and twisted metal.

Further down the block, Michael Bicay owns one of the few surviving homes, a 1949 house overgrown with succulents. He suspects his survival was a combination of luck and the updates he made to the house after a close call during the crisis. 2009 station fire.

Bicay, an astrophysicist, is also Natural resources conservation organization AltadenaWILDarguing that there is no point in increasing the population in the fire-prone foothills. He said the fire that had just destroyed his street made that point "amply".

That said, he doesn't think it's realistic to tell homeowners they shouldn't rebuild. He's not even sure what he would do if his home was in ruins.

"I just don't think society is ready to ban development in these areas," he said. "All we can do is prevent new developments from happening."

The embers don't strictly adhere to the state's map, Bucay said. He noted that some of the 2,200 houses in the danger zone had survived. While many homes outside the area do not.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the unincorporated town, has maintained that all of Altadena will return. At a board meeting this week, she interrupted the county assessor as he discussed residents' property taxes "if rebuilt."

"When they rebuild," she interjected. "I mean when."

Karen Chappell, an urban planning expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said that's often the message sent after a disaster.

"Politically, you never say, 'Go away,'" she said. "The politics of this are horrific."

But she said as residents rush to rebuild, in some cases deeper conversations must be held at the state level, which is "literally adding fuel to the fire for the next fire."

"From a policy perspective, or from a California taxpayer perspective, should we be subsidizing people to go back to these places where we have to bail them out again?" she said. "I think this is a real problem that the good residents of California have to face."

Since the Woolsey Fire burned tens of thousands of acres north of Malibu in 2018, some conservationists say Los Angeles County has become a leader in planning for future fire-prone areas in an attempt to control the disorder the region is known for. expansion.

Dan Silver, director of the Endangered Habitats Alliance, said the county has been locating homes required by the state away from the mountains while leaving residents who "disperse, spread and jump into hazardous locations." face greater difficulties.

“It’s really quite a planning achievement,” Silver said, noting a recent crackdown on subdivisions in fire-prone areas. “Los Angeles County is truly a model right now.

"Certainly, there's a lot to be disparaged about the past 100 years of land use." But he said the county "has put its money where its mouth is."

Bodecker said the county has failed to make much of an impact in one area: the location of accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

Bodecker said the county is trying to ban all ADUs in hazardous areas because "the county has no intention of adding more people to the fire zone." She said that's being overridden by the state.

The state said its fire designation "is not intended to restrict housing development" and that high-hazard zones "are not a conclusive reason to restrict residential units." national guidelines. In some cases, ADUs may be restricted in those areas, David Zisser of the state Department of Housing and Community Development said in a statement.

“I want to start saying no,” Bodecker said of a blanket ban. "The state said, 'No, you can't do that.'"

Grace Lee-Bloch and her husband, Justin, have an ADU behind their house on Leilani Way. Now it's gone along with her home. All that remains is the wrought iron front door.

Lee-Bloch, a teacher, worries people will read about her neighborhood and compare it to homeowners snatching up coastal properties destined to soon be swallowed by the ocean.

But the natural beauty of Leilani Way — a street home to so many hummingbirds that she had to buy bigger feeders — was definitely worth the risk. If she could afford it, rebuilding wouldn't be a problem, she said.

"We were very determined to build a property that would survive a situation like this," she said. "We just want our little community back."