Before a wildfire ravaged their entire street in northwest Altadena, Louise Hamlin and Chris Wilson were next-door neighbors in nearly identical houses. Today, gone are their charming English-style cottages built in 1925 with the welcoming porches and Palladian windows. Amid the rubble and ash, little is left of their historic neighborhood. Since the Eaton wildfire was contained last week, Hamlin and Wilson have been stumbling through the layers of business, bureaucracy and emotional trauma of surviving a natural disaster, with their sights firmly set on rebuilding their beloved homes. They’re among thousands of people who lost their homes in the Eaton and nearby Palisades fires, which are among the most destructive in California history. How they’ll navigate rebuilding is a story of contrasting fortunes and unequal recovery that reveals the nation’s growing home insurance crisis. Her insurance has already paid out nearly a million dollars and she is searching for contractors. He is contemplating loans, lawsuits and moving his family out of California. Hamlin’s home was privately covered by Mercury Insurance, but Wilson was forced onto the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan — the state’s bare-bones insurance program — when SafeCo declined to renew his policy last May. The FAIR Plan insures people who can’t get private coverage but need insurance as a condition of their mortgage. As wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters become more frequent and destructive across the country due to climate change, many property owners have found themselves struggling to afford private insurance. The issue is particularly acute in California, as major insurance companies have stopped writing new policies and refused to renew existing ones.