How to Recognize PTSD After a Wildfire and When to Get Help
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When wildfires threaten entire communities, the emotional struggle doesn’t always end when the flames burn out. For many survivors, the stress of evacuations, destruction, and starting over leaves a lingering pain that can resurface weeks, months, or even years later.
Some wildfire survivors experience nightmares, panic attacks, or a general sense of unease. Others shut down completely, losing motivation, withdrawing from loved ones, or even feeling like life no longer makes sense. These are all signs of post-traumatic stress — a natural response to unnatural circumstances.
“Being in a life-or-limb-threatening situation is horrifying,” Dr. Jonathan Sherin, psychiatrist and former director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, said. “Your nervous system responds to get you out of harm’s way. But when the settings of your nervous system don’t return to baseline, don’t recalibrate ... that’s when we start to say, ‘This looks like it’s becoming a problem.’”
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, up to 30-40% of people affected by disasters like wildfires may go on to develop PTSD.
Here are the signs of trauma after a disaster and how to know when it’s time to seek professional help.
If you’re processing grief and loss related to the wildfires of Pacific Palisades and Altadena there are mental health resources available to help you cope.
Escaping Fight or Flight
People often think of psychological trauma after a disaster as a sudden breakdown, but it’s more accurate to understand it as the body struggling to turn off its heightened senses after an emergency situation like a wildfire.
“We go into survival mode,” Dr. Sherin said. “One of the easy ways to think about it is fight or flight.”
When the body’s fight or flight response gets activated, it looks different for everyone, Dr. Sherin said.
The “fight” part might show up as hypervigilance, irritability, or outbursts. For other survivors, they may relive the event in nightmares or flashbacks, while some become overly reactive to reminders of the fire, like a siren, a smell, or a change in weather.
“You can actually become paranoid about things,” Dr. Sherin said.
On the “flight” side, trauma might show up as emotional numbing, disconnection from daily life, or depression. People may isolate themselves, stop engaging with friends, avoid routines, or even forget parts of what happened.
“They will be kind of locked into their own world and block everything else out,” Dr. Sherin said.
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Boxing It Up for Later
While children often express trauma in real time by crying, acting out, or becoming clingy, adults may suppress their emotions and focus on taking care of others.
“The parent who’s got to look after all of the things will, at some level, repress a lot of those initial responses to make sure that everything is okay with the family,” Dr. Sherin said. “And then at a later date, [they] really begin to suffer because of that experience that they’ve put off for a significant period of time.”
A flood of emotions that survivors didn’t realize they were still carrying can rush over them unexpectedly because the experience “hasn’t really been processed thoroughly,” Dr. Sherin said.
A future event, like another fire, an anniversary, or even a scene on television, can trigger their defenses and start “lighting up a lot of the same networks, not just in your brain, but in your body, and in your relationships,” Dr. Sherin said.
For many wildfire survivors, the trauma goes beyond fear or anxiety. It becomes a crisis of meaning and identity. Dr. Sherin calls this a “moral injury.”
“You build a psychic structure to understand the universe around you, and when it gets shattered, it injures you and your belief system,” Dr. Sherin explained.
The loss of a home or neighborhood can dismantle someone’s sense of self, Dr. Sherin said. It’s not just about damaged property. It’s about losing a source of pride, memory, and belonging.
“You kind of lose your agency,” Dr. Sherin said. “When you’re losing your agency, and you’re losing your identity as a part of a trauma, that’s a real problem and it needs to be addressed.”
When to Get Help
Not every stress reaction means someone has PTSD. After a wildfire, feelings of worry, unease and overwhelm are expected.
But if you or someone you love is still struggling to function weeks or months after the fire, extra care may be necessary.
“When someone’s personality or ability to function changes and there looks like there’s some precipitating event [like a wildfire] that’s a time to kind of check in,” Dr. Sherin said.
Here are 8 practical tips to support your child’s emotional recovery after a wildfire. Get expert advice from top child psychologists on how to guide the conversation and create opportunities for your child or teenager to open up.
Other signs to watch out for include:
- Sleep problems (either too much or too little)
- Loss of interest in work, hobbies, or relationships
- Sudden drug or alcohol use
- Trouble focusing on basic tasks or family responsibilities
If these signs start to pop up, there is more than one way to address them.
“It’s not just a clinical solution,” Dr. Sherin said. “A big part of the care needs to be the interpersonal engagement.”
In other words, support from friends, family, neighbors, or spiritual leaders, anyone who will truly listen and help someone feel reconnected and understood by the world around them, is key.
For those who do need clinical care, Dr. Sherin said there are effective therapies that help the brain reprocess what happened. One widely used method is Cognitive Processing Therapy, a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy often used in the Veterans Affairs system.
“It takes a fair amount of time, and it requires not only a good therapist and a good match, but a lot of commitment by the individual,” Dr. Sherin said. “It involves not just work in the office, but going home and doing things to, at some level, rebuild circuitry.”
Medication prescribed and monitored by a physician can also help manage anxiety, depression, or intrusive thoughts, particularly when paired with talk therapy, he added.
For people not suffering any major symptoms from a traumatic event, Dr. Sherin encourages them to add mindfulness apps to their regular routine and to view mental well-being like any other form of fitness that needs to be strengthened and protected to help release the stigma from it in our culture. This will also help people in need proactively seek the help that’s required.
SoCal NOMA architects lead a coalition to help Altadena residents rebuild after the Eaton wildfire, focusing on preserving Black homeownership and the community’s rich cultural legacy.
“When someone’s burned and they’re in pain, do you just ignore it? No,” Dr. Sherin said. “Why would one not actually think, ‘Gee, I’m not functioning that well. I should get help with that function and not feel like I’m a bad or a weak person?”
“It’s a personal responsibility,” he continued. “A responsibility for particularly those who you love and those in your community to get help if you need help.”
If you or someone you know is actively planning to harm themselves, call 988 or 911 immediately.
Access more mental health resources here or call 1-(800) 854-7771 for the L.A. County Department of Mental Health 24/7 Help Line for referrals, crisis counseling, or multilingual support. You can also text “LA” to 741741
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