The Los Angeles Unified School District released a series of test results from fire-ravaged Palisades Charter High School ahead of students’ return next week, showing that the district’s remedial efforts have removed much of the fire’s contamination.
However, some parents remain concerned about the perceived rush to refill the campus. And while experts hailed the effort as one of the most comprehensive post-fire school renovations in modern history, they warned the district failed to test for an important family of air pollutants that can increase cancer risk and cause illness.
“I think they jumped the gun,” said the parent of a sophomore at Pali High, who asked not to be named because she fears her child will backslide. “I’m very angry, and I’m very scared. My child wants to go back. … I don’t want to give him a lot of information because he has a lot of anxiety about all these changes.”
However, he still plans to send the child back to school on Tuesday, because he does not want to create another disruption in the student’s life. “These are kids living with COVID,” she said.
The Palisades Fire of 2025 destroyed many buildings on the Pali High campus and left others with soot and ash. After the fire, the school operated for about a few months and, in mid-April of 2025, moved to a former Sears store in Santa Monica.
Meanwhile, at the school, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Army Corps of Engineers removed debris from the destroyed buildings, and LAUSD hired certified environmental repair and inspection companies to restore the existing buildings to a safe condition.
LAUSD acts as the landlord of the charter school and performs post-fire maintenance and school inspections. The decision to return to campus ultimately rested with the charter school’s independent leadership.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power tested drinking water for a wide range of contaminants, and environmental consultants tested soil, HVAC systems, indoor air and surfaces including floors, desks and lockers.
They tested for asbestos, toxic metals such as lead and potentially harmful compounds often emitted from combustion, called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.
“The school is ready for occupancy,” said Carlos Torres, director of LAUSD’s office of environmental health and safety. “This is the most thorough inspection that has ever been done that I can remember – after the fire.”
Construction crews are rebuilding the Palisades Charter High School swimming pool.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
A few soil samples had metal concentrations slightly above post-fire cleanup standards, which are designed to protect vulnerable people during years of direct exposure to soil – such as yard work or playing sports. An analysis by environmental consultants found that the metals do not pose a health risk to students or staff.
In the interior, consultants found two areas with lead and one with arsenic, spaces that they cleaned and retested to make sure those metals were gone.
Air pollution testing, however, has become controversial.
Some experts cautioned that LAUSD consultants tested the air for very few non-hazardous VOCs that are often used to detect smoke from wildfires that burn vegetation. Although those tests found no pollutants, experts did not test for a much broader panel of VOCs, including many pollutants commonly found in smoke from urban fires that consume homes, cars, paints, detergents and plastics.
The best known of this group is benzene, a known carcinogen.
In a Wednesday webinar for parents and students, LAUSD counselors defended the decision, saying their goal was only to determine if smoke remained in the air after repairs, not to complete an open-label test for potentially hazardous chemicals from the fire.
Andrew Whelton, a professor at Purdue University who studies natural disasters, did not find an adequate explanation.
“Benzene is known to be released from fires. It’s known to be in the air. It’s known to come off ceilings and furniture and other things over time, after the fire is out,” Whelton said. “Therefore, I don’t understand why testing for benzene and other fire-related chemicals was not done.”
For Whelton, it represents a major problem in burned areas: Without definitive guidance on how to repair indoor spaces after a wildfire, different experts make wildly different decisions about what to test.
LAUSD released test results and remedial reports in lengthy PDFs less than two weeks before students were scheduled to return to campus, while charter school leadership set a return date of Jan. 27 before the test is completed.
In the webinar, school officials said the two buildings near the outdoor pool have not yet undergone an environmental assessment and will remain closed. Four water facilities are also awaiting final approval from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the school’s food facilities are awaiting certification from the LA County Department of Public Health.
For some parents — even those eager to leave the department store campus — it’s like rushing to restock the Pali High campus that is weighing on their decisions about how to keep their kids safe.
Torres stressed that his team acted cautiously in the decision to approve the school’s stay, and that the first promising tests helped school administrators to plan ahead. He also pointed out that this slow, careful approach is a challenge for some parents who hope that their students can return to school as soon as possible.
Experts have praised LAUSD’s efforts as comprehensive and comprehensive — except for VOC air testing.
Maintenance crews power wash the exterior of buildings, wipe down all surfaces and complete a thorough cleaning with filters to remove hazardous materials. Any soft material such as carpet or clothing that can absorb and hold dirt was thrown away. The school’s labyrinth of pipes and ducts that make up the HVAC system was also thoroughly cleaned.
Workers were inspected throughout the program to ensure that their maintenance work was successful and separated parts of the buildings when the work was completed. They then completed another full round of inspections to ensure that isolated areas were not contaminated by other work.
Environmentalists even decided that a few small buildings would not be effectively polluted and therefore demolished them.
Torres said LAUSD plans to conduct periodic tests to monitor school climate, and that the district is open to suggestions from parents.
For Whelton, the good news is that the school can easily complete a comprehensive VOC assessment within a week, if it wants to.
“They are very close to giving the school a clean bill of health,” he said. “Going back and doing this comprehensive VOC test … would be the last action they would need to take to determine if health risks still exist for students, faculty and visitors.”
