As multiple wildfires incinerated homes and displaced tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles County, experts worried about the long-term effects the fires will have on the state's already dire homelessness crisis.

In other parts of California burned by past wildfires, communities are still dealing with the fallout years later.

When a community loses thousands of homes at once when they already have a housing shortage, prices go up across the board, displacing even more people.

It's difficult to track exactly how many people are made homeless by a fire, but as fires increasingly ravage California, some communities are interested in trying.

After the 2017 Tubbs Fire burned through Napa and Sonoma counties and the Bay Area's wine country, local service providers saw a spike in homelessness about a year and a half later, said Jennielynn Holmes, the CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.

The year after the disaster, more than a third of homeless survey respondents said their previous housing or sleeping location had been affected by the fire in some way, including 12% that said it had been burned or otherwise destroyed.

Immediately after the fire, money and other aid from FEMA, the local and state government, and philanthropic organizations poured in.

Many people were able to live doubled or tripled up with friends or family for a period of time.

When the money ran out and those cramped living situations became unsustainable, people found themselves out on the street.

Holmes says it's a situation that could repeat in Los Angeles County.

"It's incredibly challenging because you're dealing with a huge new homeless population, people who lost their homes and are now technically homeless, and now you add on potentially tens of thousands more," she said.

"As Los Angeles County starts to think about rebuilding, no one is watching with more empathy than those who have been through it before," Holmes said.

For CalMatters, this is Marisa Kendall.