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Wildfires in California, unfortunately, are not uncommon. On average, over 3,000 acres burn across the state each year. Yet, in the weeks since massive swaths of Los Angeles were consumed by the Eaton and Palisades fires—which killed 30 people and destroyed over 16,000 homes and commercial properties, making these the second and third most destructive fires in California’s history—the gravity of the situation has never felt heavier. In a matter of days, the L.A. fires alone burned over 37,000 acres, more than ten times the annual average.

The time for collective action is now. In addition to rebuilding these devastated communities, we must be proactive in preparing for the next inevitable wildfire. One place to start is by ensuring that our next-gen workforce is equipped with the knowledge and tools to build more resilient infrastructure and address the worsening effects of climate change.

This motivated Sherwood’s CEO, Bry Sarté, to go behind the firelines with a group of engineering students from the class he teaches annually at U.C. Berkeley. Félix Andrés Guzmán Perdomo, Muscaan Birdi and Garima Dahiya had participated in Sarté’s Climate Resilient Infrastructure Design Studio in the fall of 2024, and each is now preparing to graduate with a masters degree from Berkeley. Through this trip, the students had the opportunity to witness first-hand the impact of wildfires and to hear what’s already being done to rebuild and prepare, and what’s needed in the future, just as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Sarté organized meetings in L.A. with leading professionals with diverse perspectives including architecture, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and real estate development. In conjunction with these meetings, the group bookended the trip with deep tours of the massive Eaton and Palisades burn sites. There they met with local homeowners who shared their personal experience of loss. This became the baseline for the three-day research trip, empowering reflection on the community perspective, which, as student Garima Dahiya put it, “deserves to be at the center of any steps forward.”

When Ms. Dahiya was an undergraduate student at India’s National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, she had friends whose communities were damaged by severe flooding that was made worse by significant overdevelopment. She recognized that land use and other human factors were directly impacting climate events, and understood that such complex challenges would require multifaceted solutions.

This understanding was reinforced by Dahiya’s experience in Los Angeles: everyone the group met shares a common goal to achieve what’s best for the L.A. community’s resilience, but their targeted solutions vary according to their expertise and range from county-wide planning and community housing to site specific natural solutions. This is the kind of complexity that is necessary. Each approach is different but complementary and can be integrated into a cohesive master plan.

Félix Andrés Guzmán Perdomo had a similar takeaway. Going into the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades and seeing the charred remains up close, he recognized the daunting logistical challenges of recovery. This was Perdomo’s first time in L.A.—he’d grown up in Rivera, Huila in Colombia and earned his undergraduate degree at the Universidad de los Andes—so the unique scale of Southern California’s sprawl was immediately apparent. He appreciated that by collaborating across disciplines, teams had a better chance of providing affected community members with real, actionable solutions and services, and of doing so quickly.

For Muscaan Birdi, the trip was even more personal. She’d grown up in Altadena, and although her own family home was spared, many friends’ and neighbors’ houses were destroyed and her whole neighborhood was rendered uninhabitable due to smoke damage and fractured utilities. Meeting with design and engineering professionals and discussing her own community’s challenges helped her appreciate the need to adapt our infrastructure. Yes, Altadena’s natural setting, including stately oaks, had fueled Birdi’s interests in biophilic design and motivated her undergraduate studies in sustainable environmental design at Berkeley. But this trip to L.A. helped her recognize the complicated relationship between the built and natural environments, and the way we must adapt and evolve rather than cling to past traditions if we truly want to be resilient.

This had struck Birdi when she’d learned about the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people as it destroyed the town of Paradise, California, and still ranks as the state’s most destructive wildfire. To her, it felt like there was too much focus on the cause of the fire’s spark—powerlines—and not enough conversation about the conditions that allowed the fire to spread so fast and devastate the community—conditions she fears haven’t been fully addressed in the rapid rebuilding process. Now witnessing the impact of a similar fire in her own home town, she understands that we can’t just rebuild. We have to rebuild better, smarter, and more resilient.

As she shifts from academia to professional practice, Birdi feels optimistic. Dahiya does too, noting that if she weren’t optimistic then she wouldn’t be in the engineering field in the first place. They’re even more optimistic after meeting with professionals in L.A. who are trying to come up with solutions, and they’re motivated to become this kind of professional, too.

Visiting Los Angeles inspired Perdomo to think even more about his home in Colombia, where they face challenges with water infrastructure and supply, as well as mudslides caused by an abundance of water but not enough understanding of how to manage it. Equity is an issue too, and many struggle with water scarcity. He’d also seen disparity in L.A.’s fire impact. Some well-protected areas had been spared, for example, while other, more vulnerable structures like homes and libraries burned. The priorities felt skewed. If this imbalance could happen in an affluent Southern California neighborhood, then how much worse could this have been in a low-income Colombian community?

Still, Perdomo also feels optimistic that he and his classmates can make a difference. He recognizes that it’s human nature to want our actions to be big and impactful, but that it’s most important to simply keep showing up and doing the right thing on a daily basis.

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Félix Andrés Guzmán Perdomo is preparing to graduate from U.C. Berkeley with an MS in civil and environmental engineering. Previously, he earned a BS in civil engineering from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.

Muscaan Birdi will graduate from U.C. Berkeley with a masters in civil engineering. She has also earned a bachelors in sustainable environmental design from Berkeley.

Garima Dahiya is preparing to graduate from U.C. Berkeley with a masters in environmental engineering. She earned a BS in civil engineering from India’s National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur.

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