Los Angeles fires didn’t destroy their homes, but the damage is unbearable

As soon as an evacuation order was lifted in her neighborhood, Arlynn Page ran to her charred street in Altadena, California, to see what remained of her hillside home. The two neighboring houses were in ruins, but his was unscathed.

Then she entered. A pungent mist hung in the living room. His mattresses, rugs, and couches stank like a chemical campfire. Ms. Page, 55, opened the windows and doors to let in the cool afternoon air, but she was still choking.

“My head hurts so much,” she said through a mask. “There’s so much smoke.”

That’s the grim reality facing thousands of displaced people across Los Angeles as they were allowed to return home this weekend for the first time since fleeing firestorms. Their homes had escaped the annihilation that burned 12,000 other structures, but they were nonetheless filled with ash and smoke.

As waves of residents return home in the coming weeks, many more people are likely to encounter similar surprises. Wildfires not only burn structures, but emit smoke, ash and heat that suburban homes are rarely built to withstand.

“It smelled worse inside our house than outside,” said Marcos Barron, 53, who put on a respirator and face shield as he returned to his mountainside home.