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.
While homes, trees and shrubs burned around the building, the meetinghouse itself was left standing — but it suffered extensive damage from smoke and ash. 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.
“Returning to our chapel after a year of work is a joyful milestone that fills us with renewed hope for the future,” said Los Angeles California Stake President Brian C. Ames.
While the building has been reopened, President Ames said many members of the congregation who lost their homes in the fire remain displaced.
“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,” President Ames said in a news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
And he 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.”
Kayce Mammen, the wife of Bishop Taylor G. Mammen of the Pacific Palisades Ward, said that after the wildfires, the feeling of loss was overwhelming. Many members of the ward still do not have a home, but with the rededicated chapel, they have a gathering place to continue the process of rebuilding.
“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.”
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.
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.
The two wards most affected were the Pacific Palisades and Pasadena wards, in the Los Angeles California and Pasadena California stakes.
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.”
