The Pacific Palisades Ward meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has reopened after extensive renovation following the destructive Palisades Fire of January 2025. Although the brick building at 575 Los Liones Drive was left standing, smoke and ash caused extensive damage, requiring a full-scale interior renovation.
Latter-day Saints gathered for the building’s rededication on Sunday, April 12, 2026. The reopening marked a significant moment for a congregation and community still recovering from the wildfire, with the meetinghouse serving once again as a place of worship, connection and mutual support.
The Pacific Palisades meetinghouse after the wildfire
In January 2025, the Palisades Fire became one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, burning homes, neighborhoods, schools, businesses and places of worship. At one point, close to 200,000 people were under evacuation orders as the Palisades and Eaton fires burned in early January 2025.
The fires destroyed entire neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and parts of Pasadena and Malibu. Nearly everything around the meetinghouse was destroyed in January 2025, including shrubs, trees, and the once lush hillside and trailheads behind the church.
On a stretch of Los Liones Drive where fire once erased entire blocks, one building remained. Fifteen months after the Palisades wildfire reduced much of the surrounding neighborhood to ash, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has re-opened its doors, not just as a place of worship, but as a visible marker of survival in a community still finding its way back.
While homes, trees and shrubs burned around the building, the meetinghouse itself was left standing - but it suffered extensive damage from smoke and ash. The church was left standing in what many called a miracle.
Rededication on April 12, 2026
Following extensive renovation, Latter-day Saints gathered for the building’s rededication on Sunday, April 12, 2026. On Sunday morning, April 12, congregants returned for the building’s official rededication, a moment many describe as both improbable and deeply emotional.
The Pacific Palisades Ward meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now open again following destructive wildfires in the Southern California city in January 2025. After a full-scale renovation of the interior, the building was rededicated on Sunday, April 12.
Members of the ward, stake, community and media were there. Los Angeles media also toured the building, built over half a century ago, before the worship service.
Members of the Pacific Palisades Ward gather inside their rededicated meetinghouse in Pacific Palisades, California, Sunday, April 12, 2026. The building underwent extensive interior renovation after suffering damage from the Palisades Fire in January 2025.
A place with decades of history
For the Palisades congregation, the structure represents far more than walls and a roof. Originally dedicated in the 1950s, it has served as a multigenerational anchor, a place where families have gathered, grown, and built lives over decades.
“There are people in our congregation who were there when the building was first built,” Mammen said. She recalled one woman now in her late 80s who helped raise funds for the church as a young mother, her home burned in the fire, she is now rebuilding, and has already returned.
That continuity, she said, is part of what makes this moment so meaningful. “It feels like a really big deal that our building even was spared,” said Kayce Mammen, President of the Relief Society at the church. “I don’t think any of us really expected that it would, given how surrounded it is by vegetation.”
Why the reopening matters to the congregation
In the aftermath of the fire, the loss of gathering spaces across the Palisades became one of the community’s quietest but most profound challenges. Schools, churches, and community centers, places that structure daily life and connection; were suddenly gone.
“Our church community is really like an extended family,” Mammen said. “The loss of that building represented the loss of the ability to connect with the people we’ve built our lives around.”
For months, the congregation met in Santa Monica, sharing space with another ward. Members drove long distances each week to stay connected, a reflection of how critical those relationships had become in the wake of displacement.
“It really brought home how much having a place together matters,” she said. While the building has been reopened as a place of gathering and worship, many members of the congregation who lost their homes in the fire remain displaced.
Members continue to face displacement
Like many families in the Palisades, the experience of displacement was both immediate and deeply personal. Mammen’s family home survived, but was heavily impacted by smoke damage, forcing a temporary relocation to Orange County.
Their children changed schools midyear, navigating unfamiliar environments while their home underwent full remediation. They returned in the fall.
Across the Palisades, similar stories continue to unfold, some families have come back, others remain displaced, and many are still navigating whether rebuilding is even possible.
While the building has been reopened, President Ames said many members of the congregation who lost their homes in the fire remain displaced. “Many of our members still do not have a home, but now at least they have a gathering place to continue the process of rebuilding,” Mammen said.
Hope alongside grief
Still, the moment carries both hope and weight. “Returning to our chapel after a year of work is a joyful milestone that fills us with renewed hope for the future,” said Brian Ames, Los Angeles California Stake President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Yet, even in our excitement, we carry a deep awareness of the collective grief that remains for those still navigating the difficult path of rebuilding their own lives,” Ames said.
President Ames also told CBS Los Angeles: “We’re happy that we’re able to be back in just a year, where many people are still rebuilding their homes and their lives. And we hope that this will be another step forward in rebuilding the community here in the Palisades.”
“We believe as we come together, every step forward - no matter how small - invites more light and healing into the hearts of the entire Palisades community,” Ames said.
“Now there is hope that we can reclaim the lost pieces of our lives, working together in a single place, continuing to recover as a community.”
“This is a really important milestone, but we’re still recovering,” said Mammen. It is a reminder that while progress is visible, recovery is far from complete.
Support after the fires
Behind it is a broader network of support. Local and regional church leadership helped coordinate housing, meals, and resources in the immediate aftermath, reinforcing how institutions can function as critical infrastructure during recovery.
“They were really there for us,” Mammen said. After the fires, members of the ward told the Church News that any time they could meet together was healing.
And Bishop Mammen saw how they served each other. “The ministering people have been doing for each other has been incredible,” he said then.
Support for wildfire-affected Latter-day Saints
Shortly after the fires swept through Los Angeles County, Church members and their friends from Pasadena, Pacific Palisades, and Altadena, California, who were impacted by the recent wildfires, gathered in a chapel on Saturday, February 22, 2025, to hear from President Jeffrey R. Holland, the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
“We cry with you. We pray with you. You’re not isolated. You’re not forgotten,” President Holland told the gathering.
The late President Jeffrey R. Holland, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, traveled to Southern California in February 2025 to comfort the Latter-day Saints.
Offering a blessing upon the hundreds of the people - as if he would lay his hands on each of their heads personally - President Holland said, “I bless you, everyone, with every righteous desire of your heart.”
The Pacific Palisades Ward and surrounding stakes
The two wards most affected were the Pacific Palisades and Pasadena wards, in the Los Angeles California and Pasadena California stakes.
The chapel in Pacific Palisades, California, is pictured on Sunday, April 12, 2026, after its rededication following extensive renovation after suffering smoke and ash damage in the Palisades Fire in January 2025.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, Pacific Palisades Ward Bishop Taylor Mammen joins Church News reporter Mary Richards to share more of the recovery process and what it is like to meet again “in a beloved, familiar place where many sacred experiences have taken place.”
The reopening of the meetinghouse provides a familiar place for worship and community life while many residents continue rebuilding homes and neighborhoods. “We believe that as we come together, every step forward, no matter how small, invites more light and healing into the hearts of the entire Palisades community.”