Collective trauma of LA wildfires could create mental health problems for decades

If you’re wondering what’s next for a region ravaged by wildfires, consider this possible future:

Much of Los Angeles County and surrounding areas is about to need therapy. If not immediately, then soon. And possibly for years.

Mental health woes – in the form of everything from anxiety and depression to unexplained rage and suicide – could plague the city long after the current disaster fades from the news. Post-disaster Los Angeles might even appear as if it’s stuck in the COVID era, with a small but noticeable slice of the population battling a persistent and sometimes deadly disease.

Those are informed predictions from people working in a relatively new, self-explanatory field of psychology known as collective trauma.

Experts in collective trauma describe the Palisades and Eaton fires as a combined “instigating event.” By that, they mean the fires, collectively, are a potential super spreader of mental suffering, not unlike other community-wide disasters such as the 9/11 terror attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the Las Vegas mass shooting.

Nobody can say exactly how many people will be affected, only that most people will not suffer to the point that they need help. “Collective” doesn’t mean everyone. But experts do say at least some fraction of Los Angeles County’s 9.7 million residents – meaning tens of thousands of people when you include some in neighboring counties – will experience mental health challenges powerful enough to require psychological or psychiatric treatment.

Experts also can’t say for sure who those people will be. They only can say with certainty that children are more likely than adults to suffer short-term woes (though kids also are more likely to bounce back quickly), and that struggling with mental health after an event that has (so far) killed 27 people and wiped out or damaged an estimated 12,000 structures isn’t a character flaw.

“The need for help is going to be immense. And it could apply to anybody. It’s not about strength or intelligence or anything like that,” said Charles Figley, a professor of psychology at Tulane University who has studied how people fared, mentally and emotionally, in the wake of events such as Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf War, among others.

Academics, of course, aren’t alone in predicting this.

This week, the state started running public service ads urging fire victims who are feeling anxious or uncontrolled grief to call CalHOPE, a phone resource that’s typically aimed at helping young people who are struggling with mental health challenges. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has field counselors in some disaster recovery centers, helping people sort through issues as diverse as nightmares and nausea that might be a short-term result of fire-related stress. And the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration has set up a hotline for people who, pre-fire, were struggling with addiction or mental health issues.

Several nonprofits also are gearing up to offer mental health help. The Red Cross has a hotline for people experiencing fire-related stress. And OurHouse, a grief support group in Woodland Hills, has published a resource page for people struggling to cope with the fires. Last week, the same group also launched a series of Zoom events in which people can share tips about issues such as talking about the disaster with kids and sharing their grief, and a page of 500 mental health counselors who are offering free services.

That level of outreach isn’t overkill. In fact, trauma experts say the surge of people seeking care now could be the tip of a much bigger iceberg. The mental health aftermath of the fires is something that could take several months, or even years, to fully play out.

“Based on what we’ve seen after Katrina, and what I’ve learned by studying other events, and the war, I think your fires are going to strain (mental health) resources and surprise a lot of people,” Figley said.

Long trauma

People who study collective trauma don’t always agree on every detail about what it means. And research into how disaster-hit communities fare, collectively, over time, is limited to a few huge events that have happened in this century, when the concept began to be widely studied.

But most experts agree on a couple basic points.

First, the emotional toll of the fires will extend far beyond the subset of people who lost loved ones or friends or pets or homes. So-called second-level victims – evacuees, witnesses, people who didn’t lose homes and are feeling survivor’s guilt; even news consumers – also can be affected in some way.

Second, experts say the emotional and mental problems that emerge in the wake of disaster could be as life-altering as any other type of trauma that might befall an individual or a family.

“A substantial minority of people will experience acute mental health problems,” said Dana Rose Garfin, an associate professor who works at UCLA’s Center for Public Health & Disasters.

“The severity of those problems isn’t always connected to the extent of their individual loss as it relates to the event,” she added. “And while it’s common to experience problems in the immediate aftermath, problems that for most people will abate over time, it’s also not uncommon to experience problems for a while afterward, or for issues to emerge much later.”

That idea is echoed in some of the research about survivors of other recent disasters.

In 2019, psychologists from MIT, Harvard, Yale and the University of Massachusetts published a study looking at the mental health journeys of some survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which in 2005 killed 1,392 people, displaced about 650,000 others and destroyed or damaged an estimated 217,000 dwellings.

Twelve years after the floods, the researchers found that 1 in 6 of the Katrina survivors they studied were still suffering at least some symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Many others reported feelings of anxiety and depression, and some reported suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

And while many of the Katrina victims who suffered the longest were people who already faced economic stress and racial discrimination prior to the storm, researchers wrote that those issues weren’t as important as the disaster itself. “Exposure to traumatic events is a primary predictor of adverse mental health more than a decade post-disaster.”

Other studies suggest all of us – at least those of us who lived in this country during the pandemic, which killed about 1 million Americans – also have recently battled collective trauma.

A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association, which asked 3,185 adults around the country about specific physical and mental health issues before and after the pandemic, found long-term increases in chronic physical ailments and mental illness two years after daily COVID-19 death counts were high. Younger adults (ages 35 to 44) and women saw the biggest changes, and nearly a third of American adults of all backgrounds said the pandemic left them so stressed that they don’t plan for the future.

The survey also found that a majority of respondents (61%) believe others expect them to “just get over it.”

The researchers behind the survey concluded that “coping with long-term stress requires a different set of skills than adjusting to temporary stressors.”

All of that could matter in post-disaster Los Angeles. Experts believe exposure to previous traumas – everything from being a victim of assault or spousal abuse, or being raised by adults who struggled with addiction – could make fire survivors more vulnerable to mental health problems.

Though Garfin was quick to note that it’s unclear how that might play out, she believes the fires could be part of a “cascading” series of incidents that, combined, could worsen some survivors’ long-term mental health.

“We are living in an era of compounding, cascading stressors. The amount and frequency of such issues, in this media environment, I absolutely think it adds to the problem,” she said.

“The fires just add to all that.”

News hurts

Another factor is news. How people get information about the fires – whether it is fact-based or rumor-based – could affect their long-term mental health.

After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Garfin said, studies found a link between mental health problems and consumption of news. Generally speaking, reading or watching more news led to more problems.

But Garfin said there were – and probably are – stark differences based on what kinds of news stories people consumed.

Facts, she said, typically give disaster survivors some answers, which reduces uncertainty and eases stress. Fact-based stories also often offer ways for people to help others who’ve been directly affected by the underlying event, actions that can stave off mental health problems by reminding individuals they’re not powerless in the face of disaster.

Rumors and opinions, however, tend to do the opposite. They add to uncertainty and inflame two emotions – anger and fear – that can serve as fuel to long-term mental health woes.

Though the lines blur, legacy media tends to strive for fact-based news, while social media tends to put a news label on rumor or opinion.

In 2013, following the bombing in Boston, the media landscape included a lot of social media but was still dominated by legacy news sources. The 2025 news landscape, in Los Angeles, is different, with a lot more people are getting information from social feeds along with local television and legacy news.

That dynamic could make Los Angeles fire survivors more vulnerable to mental health problems in the future.

“What I’ve seen with the fires, is there has been a lot of really angry, defamatory stuff on social media,” Garfin said.

“If people don’t know what to believe, or what’s even true, that’s not healthy,” she added.

And what’s even mildly unhealthy for adults can be toxic for children.

Kids tend to use imagination to process news. That’s true when they’re taking in news about a new video game and it’s true when they’re watching or reading news about a disaster, like the fires. In both cases, kids’ imaginations will enhance whatever they might expect to get – joy or fear – from the issue in question.

In disasters, that can turn news into poison.

A 2006 study by community trauma researchers from Boston University that looked at how kids fared emotionally in the wake of 9/11 found a strong link between media consumption and future mental health problems. Though they looked at a variety of issues, including the mental health of parents prior to 9/11, the authors offered a bottom-line assessment about disaster news and kids:

“For younger children, the amount of television viewing predicted increased risk of PTSD symptoms.”

Nearly a generation later, a lot of local parents seem to have heard – or lived through – that message.

“We’re keeping our kids on a strict screen diet right now. And if I see fire news on their phone or tablets it gets taken away,” said Alyson Neagle, a mother who had to evacuate with her two girls, ages 11 and 9, from an apartment near the Eaton fire.

“But they know what’s going on,” she added. “And they even know that they probably don’t want to watch the news. I don’t think they’re eager to see that stuff.”

Club Fire?

Neagle, who is staying with friends until she and the girls can return to their apartment in South Pasadena, believes the fires still burning in Los Angeles eventually could spur something different than widespread mental illness – a sense of community.

The 38-year-old said she grew up in Delaware and moved to New York City in 2011, after she graduated from college. At that time, she said, long-time New Yorkers tended to bond – not fret – when they talked about the 9/11 terror attacks.

“It was like a club,” she said.

Tulane professor Figley said Katrina spurred something similar in New Orleans.

“The phrase is, ‘How’d you fare?’  Everybody asks it. And it means ‘tell me your story,’” Figley said.

“People in New Orleans are healthier, mentally, because of Katrina. Or if not healthier, they’re more bonded with each other.

“I’m not saying that’s how it will be in Los Angeles. Who knows?” he added. “But it’s possible.”