How Hollywood Workers Are Recovering From L.A. Wildfires

Seriina Covarrubias was baking herself a birthday cake in her Altadena home when the wildfire in Eaton Canyon broke out on the evening of January 7. Within an hour, she lost power and cell service as she and her husband raced to evacuate.

“I knew we had to get out of there, because there was going to be no way that we were even going to know what was happening,” the film director and screenwriter told Deadline. “We made sure to buy our house away from the mountain, because I didn’t want to ever have to deal with this, and it didn’t matter. It stretched all the way to our block.”

Her house is one of the only structures on the block still standing, thanks to a volunteer fighting the fire nearby who flagged down a fire truck when the garage went up in flames.

Covarrubias and her husband are two of the thousands of victims of the historic Palisades and Eaton wildfires that burned more than 40,000 acres in Los Angeles County last month, resulting in more than $60 billion in economic losses. It’s a tragic start to a year Hollywood was hoping would revive the center of the film and TV industry after years of strife.

“Work was just starting to come back,” Covarrubias said. “I’m supposed to be promoting my movie. Instead, I’m just trying to rebuild my life back.”

In the wake of the wildfires, the entertainment industry has stepped up to support those who have been affected. Studios, celebrities and even the labor unions have donated to relief funds for entertainment workers who have been financially impacted. But, the most remarkable outpouring of generosity has come from the workers themselves, engaging in collective action to assist their colleagues.

Even as the fires were still raging, a spreadsheet began circulating among crew with a list of more than 200 vetted GoFundMe pages for crew families who had lost their homes, organized by former WGA board member Liz Alper. She tells Deadline that Hollywood crews “sacrificed a lot” over the past several years, and after their solidarity during the dual strikes she wanted to make sure someone stepped up to help “the people who really could not afford to lose more and now have lost it all.”

As of publication, well over half of the fundraisers are at least halfway funded, and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for crew in need. Covarrubias is on that list, as is Robyn Migel, whose family resided in Altadena for more than 20 years before their home perished in the Eaton fire.

“It’s so heartbreaking to lose all that,” said Migel, a member of IATSE Local 700. “That’s the glue that held my family together.”

At the same time, she says she’s been overwhelmed by the outreach and support she’s received in the days since. In addition to financial assistance, Migel tells Deadline she’s had crew members vow to help her family find work and offer up their own extra equipment to replace any gear they might’ve lost.

“We had that ‘stay alive till ’25’ mentality, and now it’s like, well, the rug kind of got ripped out on 2025 so far. But we’re resilient,” she said. “We’re like circus folk, man. We’re in a troupe together, and we’ll figure it out.”

After weathering extensive pandemic- and strike-related shutdowns over the past few years, many working-class people in Los Angeles’ entertainment sector were still struggling to find consistent work in 2024 due to the massive contraction in film and TV production. According to a recent report from FilmLA, production in Los Angeles was down more than 30% over five-year averages in 2024. Pretty quickly, the industry adopted the phrase “Survive til ’25,” hoping the new year might bring some relief.

In the wake of yet another devastating circumstance, entertainment workers are trying their best not to lose hope. But, as one crew member lamented, many are left wondering: “Now what?”

There’s no clear answer as to what to do next. While the wildfires are no longer an active threat, thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed, and rebuilding is expected to take years.

The impact of the wildfires on Los Angeles-based production is unclear. Shoot days were down 50% and permit applications plummeted in the week after the fires broke out, according to Philip Sokoloski, VP of integrated communications at FilmLA. However, the organization is hoping that’ll be a short-term affect of the fires and production will bounce back in the coming weeks.

As Sokoloski points out, early January is already a typically slow time for production, but work will need to increase beyond last year’s levels if there’s any hope for economic rebound in Los Angeles.

“It’s been an almost unspeakably difficult time for the members of the film industry who earn their living supporting California-based production here,” Sokoloski said. “People have asked us for a year now, ‘What does the new normal look like?’ I think we were beginning to grasp that maybe we’ve seen the worst of it, and we’re beginning to recover now. However, the start of the new year has been put back to some degree by the fires and their presence in our communities, and I think people are once again back into that place of uncertainty.”

For now, instead of waiting on insurance payouts or government subsidies to begin the rebuilding process, the Hollywood labor community has continued to take matters into its own hands.

The Costume Designers Guild (IATSE Local 892) organized a clothing drive, taking donations originally for families affected by the fires to come pick out a new wardrobe. However, after receiving thousands of items as designers like Anine Bing dropped off dozens of boxes and celebrities like Annette Bening giving pieces from her own closet, the guild held a swap meet at its Burbank headquarters to raise even more money for fire victims. The three-day sale collected more than $40,000.

Down the street, Teamsters Local 399 member Louis Dargenzio has been helping affected families furnish new apartments and homes using donations from the community as well as unused set pieces from most of the major Hollywood studios. Dargenzio, a 20-year industry veteran, was about to launch his new company Zello when the fires broke out and one of his close friends lost her home.

He says his mind-set shifted from launching a business to directing aid to the community. Dargenzio opened Zello’s headquarters as a distribution center and mobilized dozens of other Teamsters to pick up and deliver furniture around the Los Angeles area. They welcome families into the headquarters for a personal “shopping” experience, and their selections are delivered straight to their door. Dargenzio also said he’s working with several real estate brokers to waive their fees for families in need.

“We could go launch a business later. Right now, the community needs us, and this is our time to step up. We have a lot of resources,” Dargenzio explained.

Hollywood crews haven’t just taken care of their own in the aftermath of the fires, using their skill sets to help the rest of the community as well. Alex Mestres rallied his fellow Teamsters to send generators to West L.A. fire stations that lost power while they were battling the flames in January.

“Our industry is an ecosystem. We have the resources. If we can set up a production, tear it down, move along and do it all over again … our crew members have the knowledge, the skill set and the expertise to provide support, not only in the industry, but outside, to our community as well,” Mestres said.

Mestres is born and raised in L.A., and his mother lost her home in the Palisades fire. So far, crew has managed to raise more than $45,000 to help her rebuild via the same spreadsheet that helped Covarrubias and Migel.

Deadline has also heard stories of lighting technicians who helped protect neighbors’ homes from the flames and caterers who provided meals to first responders.

Fire relief and recovery have been top of mind in Hollywood and, in addition to grassroots fundraising efforts, most agencies, studios and unions have collected millions of dollars to aid families in need.

The WGA West and the PGA, which pledged a combined $1 million in relief for its members via funds established through the Entertainment Community Fund. SAG-AFTRA also pledged $1 million to its own foundation, and the Directors Guild Foundation has partnered with the Motion Picture Television Fund to establish a grant program.

Other entertainment affiliates have also committed to financial aid including the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Wasserman Foundation and many more.

The SoCal Fire Fund, spearheaded by the CAA Foundation, the humanitarian organization CORE, and the LAUSD Education Foundation, has raised over $5.7M to assist in relief efforts, not only providing monetary assistance but also deploying resources like hygiene kits, school supplies, and personal protective equipment.

FireAid recently boasted an estimated $100M in donations following a benefit concert in Los Angeles that spanned two venues (the Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum) and featured artists from Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo to Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell. The organization says that approximately half of those donations have gone to “immediate relief” via grants.

A campaign called Stay in LA has also emerged after the fires, calling on studios to keep more filmmaking in the city as out-of-state and overseas production continues to grow, with high-profile supporters including Jonathan Nolan, Paul Feig, Natasha Rothwell, Chelsea Peretti, Maya Erskine, Jay Duplass, Camilla Luddington, Zach Woods, Matt Rogers, Ginnifer Goodwin, Trew Mullen, Julie Bowen, Lewis Pullman, Troian Bellisario and Krysten Ritter.

In a recent Deadline column, IATSE Vice President Mike Miller Jr. called on studios to “pledge a percentage of your content will be produced here in Hollywood for the next five years.”

Efforts to increase production in L.A. began before the January flames, though, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed in October to increase the state’s film and TV tax credits from their present level of $330 million a year to around $750 million annually. 

All of these efforts will play an important part in helping crew get back on their feet in the next few years. Some, like Migel, say they have considered leaving L.A. for the first time after losing their homes as they wonder whether they can financially recover in an already expensive city where jobs continue to be scarce.

“We were so happy that we had a home, and we were going to build an ADU in the back for our kids to live in, and we were going to leave them this house when we passed on and it was all done,” Migel told Deadline. “We have nothing. … Maybe we don’t need to be in L.A. anymore. I’ve never lived outside Los Angeles County in my entire life, but I need to be open.”