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"content": "\u003cp>Rain on the way to parched Southern California on Saturday will aid firefighters mopping up multiple wildfires. But heavy downpours on charred hillsides could bring the threat of new troubles like \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-toxic-ash-health-fa845b7573ba463bf2e61ea3042c66a2\">toxic ash runoff\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County crews spent much of the week removing vegetation, shoring up slopes and reinforcing roads in devastated areas of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble and ash after breaking out during powerful winds Jan. 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the region will likely get around an inch of precipitation over several days, but “the threat is high enough to prepare for the worst-case scenario” of localized cloudbursts causing mud and debris to flow down hills, the National Weather Service said on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the problem would be if one of those showers happens to park itself over a burn area,” weather service meteorologist Carol Smith said Saturday. “That could be enough to create debris flows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rain was expected to begin late Saturday, increase throughout the weekend and possibly last into early Tuesday, Smith said. Flood watches were issued for some burn areas. Snow was likely in the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">issued an executive order this week\u003c/a> to expedite cleanup efforts and mitigate the environmental impacts of fire-related pollutants. L.A. County supervisors also approved an emergency motion to install flood-control infrastructure and expedite and remove sediment in fire-impacted areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews filled sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials cautioned that ash in recent burn zones was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-children-schools-toxic-ash-3295ce74c5b4d41d7db6a08428ddd2e8\">a toxic mix\u003c/a> of incinerated cars, electronics, batteries, building materials, paints, furniture and other household items. It contains pesticides, asbestos, plastics and lead. Residents were urged to wear protective gear while cleaning up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerns about post-fire debris flows have been especially high since 2018, when the town of Montecito up the coast from L.A. was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/ec4b52c64e954c5c91ad5d9dcb29ca98\">ravaged by mudslides\u003c/a> after a downpour hit mountain slopes burned bare by a huge blaze. Twenty-three people died, and hundreds of homes were damaged.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12023695,news_12021661,news_12024151\"]While the impending wet weather ended weeks of dangerous gusts and reduced humidity, several wildfires were still burning Saturday across Southern California. Those included the Palisades and Eaton fires, which \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-victim-zhao-altadena-a59f2cf70d1b0f6736b4819031b3727c\">killed at least 28 people\u003c/a> and destroyed more than 14,000 structures. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 81%, and the Eaton Fire was at 95% containment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In northern Los Angeles County, firefighters made significant progress against the Hughes Fire, which prompted evacuations for tens of thousands of people when it erupted Wednesday in mountains near Lake Castaic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in San Diego County, there was still little containment of the Border 2 Fire churning through a remote area of the Otay Mountain Wilderness near the U.S.-Mexico border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rain was expected to snap a near-record streak of dry weather for Southern California. Much of the region has received less than 5% of the average rainfall for this point in the water year, which began Oct. 1, the \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> reported Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of Southern California is now either in “extreme drought” or “severe drought,” according to the \u003ca href=\"https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?West\">U.S. Drought Monitor\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Rain on the way to parched Southern California on Saturday will aid firefighters mopping up multiple wildfires. But heavy downpours on charred hillsides could bring the threat of new troubles like \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-toxic-ash-health-fa845b7573ba463bf2e61ea3042c66a2\">toxic ash runoff\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles County crews spent much of the week removing vegetation, shoring up slopes and reinforcing roads in devastated areas of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble and ash after breaking out during powerful winds Jan. 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the region will likely get around an inch of precipitation over several days, but “the threat is high enough to prepare for the worst-case scenario” of localized cloudbursts causing mud and debris to flow down hills, the National Weather Service said on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the problem would be if one of those showers happens to park itself over a burn area,” weather service meteorologist Carol Smith said Saturday. “That could be enough to create debris flows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rain was expected to begin late Saturday, increase throughout the weekend and possibly last into early Tuesday, Smith said. Flood watches were issued for some burn areas. Snow was likely in the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">issued an executive order this week\u003c/a> to expedite cleanup efforts and mitigate the environmental impacts of fire-related pollutants. L.A. County supervisors also approved an emergency motion to install flood-control infrastructure and expedite and remove sediment in fire-impacted areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews filled sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials cautioned that ash in recent burn zones was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-children-schools-toxic-ash-3295ce74c5b4d41d7db6a08428ddd2e8\">a toxic mix\u003c/a> of incinerated cars, electronics, batteries, building materials, paints, furniture and other household items. It contains pesticides, asbestos, plastics and lead. Residents were urged to wear protective gear while cleaning up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerns about post-fire debris flows have been especially high since 2018, when the town of Montecito up the coast from L.A. was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/ec4b52c64e954c5c91ad5d9dcb29ca98\">ravaged by mudslides\u003c/a> after a downpour hit mountain slopes burned bare by a huge blaze. Twenty-three people died, and hundreds of homes were damaged.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While the impending wet weather ended weeks of dangerous gusts and reduced humidity, several wildfires were still burning Saturday across Southern California. Those included the Palisades and Eaton fires, which \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-victim-zhao-altadena-a59f2cf70d1b0f6736b4819031b3727c\">killed at least 28 people\u003c/a> and destroyed more than 14,000 structures. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 81%, and the Eaton Fire was at 95% containment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In northern Los Angeles County, firefighters made significant progress against the Hughes Fire, which prompted evacuations for tens of thousands of people when it erupted Wednesday in mountains near Lake Castaic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in San Diego County, there was still little containment of the Border 2 Fire churning through a remote area of the Otay Mountain Wilderness near the U.S.-Mexico border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rain was expected to snap a near-record streak of dry weather for Southern California. Much of the region has received less than 5% of the average rainfall for this point in the water year, which began Oct. 1, the \u003cem>Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> reported Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of Southern California is now either in “extreme drought” or “severe drought,” according to the \u003ca href=\"https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?West\">U.S. Drought Monitor\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Trump and Newsom Embrace in Fire-Ravaged LA, but the President Wants to Tie Federal Aid to Voter ID",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against California’s governor as “Newscum,” spread misinformation about the causes of the Los Angeles fires and suggested that California \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/california-fires-donald-trump-money/\">will not receive the typical federal aid\u003c/a> for recovery unless it changes its water policy. Or its \u003ca href=\"https://nypost.com/2025/01/22/us-news/trump-rips-gov-gavin-newsom-for-not-managing-california-forests-before-devastating-la-wildfires-like-a-nuclear-weapon-went-off/\">forestry policy\u003c/a>. Or its \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/\">immigration sanctuary policy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This morning, as he prepared to fly to the fire zone, he added a new one: voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want voter ID as a start, and I want the water to be released,” Trump \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/jwheelertv/status/1882825851827609647?s=46&t=k2NuVvIZrKUCtjcbukymHQ\">told reporters\u003c/a> on the tarmac during a stop in North Carolina. “After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demand further politicized a fragile situation that has left Gov. Gavin Newsom scrambling to respond to the whims of the president — or even to speak with him at all — to secure billions of dollars from the federal government to help Los Angeles fight an ongoing firestorm and rebuild. For days after Trump announced his intent to travel to Los Angeles to survey fire damage, it was unclear whether the president would invite Newsom to join him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet by the time he arrived in California, Trump seemed to have found his West Coast chill. Newsom was indeed waiting for the president on the tarmac at LAX this afternoon and Trump greeted him warmly, shaking his hand, embracing him and repeatedly patting him on the arm as he promised to “take care of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to get it fixed — though we’ll get it permanently fixed so it can’t happen again,” Trump told reporters. He expressed awe at the scale of the damage, which he compared to the destruction of World War II: “It’s like you got hit by a bomb.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to need a lot of federal help,” Newsom said, before brushing off a question about Trump’s voter ID demand. “I have all the confidence in the world we’ll work that out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The whiplash reflects the complicated balancing act for Newsom as he tries to advocate for his state while simultaneously appeasing a president for whom California has served as a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/09/trump-harris-california-fact-check/\">frequent political foil\u003c/a>. While the White House did ultimately confirm, a few hours before Trump’s arrival, that Newsom could greet him at the airport, the governor was not included in a tour of Pacific Palisades where Trump met first responders and residents who lost their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when Trump later hosted a televised roundtable discussion with local officials such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and selected members of California’s congressional delegation, he kept Newsom — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/11/newsom-desantis-debate/\">a vigorous would-be debater\u003c/a> — out of the room and off TV. That left the president free to attack the state’s environmental policies largely unchallenged, vowing “to override the Coastal Commission. I’m not going to let them get away with their antics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tension between the newly reinstalled Republican president and California’s Democratic governor — longtime political nemeses who nevertheless \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2020/09/newsom-trump-california-meeting/\">routinely worked together on disaster recovery\u003c/a> during Trump’s first term — exploded alongside the fires that have burned through Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other swaths of the Los Angeles region over the past two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor had quickly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/trump-los-angeles-fire-aid-newsom/\">extended an invitation to Trump\u003c/a> to visit Los Angeles, an effort to lower the temperature as partisan demands soared to punish California for supposedly mismanaging the disaster. But Newsom acknowledged late Thursday afternoon that he had still not heard back from the president, less than a day before his expected touchdown in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor remained outwardly optimistic about the strength of their relationship as he spoke with reporters Thursday, after \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2025/01/la-fires-relief-legislature/\">approving $2.5 billion in fire recovery funds\u003c/a> that he hopes will eventually be reimbursed by the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m glad he’s coming out here. I’m grateful that the president’s taking the time,” Newsom said. “And I hope he comes with a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. That’s the spirit to which we welcome him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘More delicate under this president’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s common for presidents and governors of opposing political parties to do battle on policy differences and then come together when natural disasters strike, said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat whose district has been badly damaged by the Palisades fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be a delicate balance under any president and certainly, it’s more delicate under this president,” he told CalMatters. “It may appear a little messy, and perhaps it is, but it’s also an integral part of our federal system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump reportedly invited California’s two Democratic U.S. senators — Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, whom he dubbed “Shifty Schiff” for investigating him during his first term — to join him in the fire zone, but they stayed in Washington, D.C., for floor votes.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12021740,news_12023677,news_12024085\"]“While his continued comments threatening conditions on federal aid and to eliminate FEMA are deeply concerning, we remain hopeful this visit moves the President and Congress closer to focus on relief over partisanship,” they said in a joint statement. “Americans should be able to count on our support to recover and rebuild in the wake of these tragedies, no matter what state they call home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for Newsom, he’s at a precarious moment in his relationship with the president. While he initially positioned California at the forefront of a renewed resistance after Trump won a second term in November, even calling a special session to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/11/gavin-newsom-special-session-trump-resistance/\">fund litigation against the incoming administration\u003c/a>, Newsom now finds himself dependent on the goodwill of a federal government almost fully under the sway of Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how forthcoming federal assistance will be. Since the outbreak of the Los Angeles fires more than two weeks ago, Trump has continued to inaccurately claim \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/la-fires-donald-trump-fact-check/\">that Los Angeles lacked water\u003c/a> to fight these fires because the state does not send enough water south from Northern California. He has depicted them as Newsom’s fault and even demanded that he resign, although fire and climate experts have repeatedly attributed the blazes to off-the-charts \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/dry-danger-zone-california-fires-climate-change/\">dry conditions in the face of ferocious Santa Ana winds\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, with the support of many congressional Republicans, the president has threatened to withhold or condition disaster aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s interest in voter ID goes back to at least 2016, when he began insisting, without any evidence, that he failed to win the deep blue state of California because \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/23/yet-again-trump-falsely-blames-illegal-voting-getting-walloped-california/\">people who aren’t citizens participated in the presidential election\u003c/a>. A new California law that took effect this year \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1174\">prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification\u003c/a> to cast their ballots in an election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1882851719710978552\">post on social media\u003c/a>, Newsom’s press office pointed out that California requires people to present identification when they register to vote and wrote, “Conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has substantially, though not entirely, pulled his punches against Trump in recent weeks. He largely kept a low profile leading up to the president’s visit, working on fire response from Los Angeles. After the president erroneously complained in Monday’s inauguration speech that the fires were burning “without even a token of defense,” Newsom issued a gentle statement that emphasized “finding common ground and striving toward shared goals” with the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the face of one of the worst natural disasters in America’s history, this moment underscores the critical need for partnership, a shared commitment to facts, and mutual respect,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet he also, on social media, slammed several of Trump’s early executive orders on immigration and climate change, then sent an email to supporters deriding the passage from Trump’s inaugural speech as “nonsense” and “insulting” to firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the governor’s special session to “safeguard California values” from the Trump administration continues on, with Democrats in the state Senate voting Thursday to advance $25 million for legal fees. Republican lawmakers have lambasted the session as a distraction from wildfire response and an unnecessary poke at the president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen, the senator from Santa Monica, said he understood that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises to the Americans who supported him, but that California politicians would be derelict if they didn’t push back, because voters had elected them with a different vision for how to run the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want, and our constituents want us, to cooperate with the federal government to help on the areas of mutual agreement and need,” he said. “The flip side is, we are also part of the loyal opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom told reporters Thursday that it was important for the state to prepare to fight Trump at the same time that he is courting the president’s help, noting that Trump “already assaulted the Fourteenth Amendment” with his day one executive order challenging birthright citizenship, which \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/california-trump-lawsuit-birthright-citizenship/\">California immediately sued to stop\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor evoked the “great relationship” he had with Trump during the COVID pandemic, when they spoke nearly every week, and said he did not expect the special session to affect that because it was “nothing personal,” but rather based on “fundamental policy disagreements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is situational. Don’t color it in any more than it needs to be,” Newsom said. “I’m here for the long haul, to support the president where we can, to defend our values where we must.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against California’s governor as “Newscum,” spread misinformation about the causes of the Los Angeles fires and suggested that California \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/california-fires-donald-trump-money/\">will not receive the typical federal aid\u003c/a> for recovery unless it changes its water policy. Or its \u003ca href=\"https://nypost.com/2025/01/22/us-news/trump-rips-gov-gavin-newsom-for-not-managing-california-forests-before-devastating-la-wildfires-like-a-nuclear-weapon-went-off/\">forestry policy\u003c/a>. Or its \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/\">immigration sanctuary policy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This morning, as he prepared to fly to the fire zone, he added a new one: voter ID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want voter ID as a start, and I want the water to be released,” Trump \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/jwheelertv/status/1882825851827609647?s=46&t=k2NuVvIZrKUCtjcbukymHQ\">told reporters\u003c/a> on the tarmac during a stop in North Carolina. “After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demand further politicized a fragile situation that has left Gov. Gavin Newsom scrambling to respond to the whims of the president — or even to speak with him at all — to secure billions of dollars from the federal government to help Los Angeles fight an ongoing firestorm and rebuild. For days after Trump announced his intent to travel to Los Angeles to survey fire damage, it was unclear whether the president would invite Newsom to join him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet by the time he arrived in California, Trump seemed to have found his West Coast chill. Newsom was indeed waiting for the president on the tarmac at LAX this afternoon and Trump greeted him warmly, shaking his hand, embracing him and repeatedly patting him on the arm as he promised to “take care of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to get it fixed — though we’ll get it permanently fixed so it can’t happen again,” Trump told reporters. He expressed awe at the scale of the damage, which he compared to the destruction of World War II: “It’s like you got hit by a bomb.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to need a lot of federal help,” Newsom said, before brushing off a question about Trump’s voter ID demand. “I have all the confidence in the world we’ll work that out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The whiplash reflects the complicated balancing act for Newsom as he tries to advocate for his state while simultaneously appeasing a president for whom California has served as a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/09/trump-harris-california-fact-check/\">frequent political foil\u003c/a>. While the White House did ultimately confirm, a few hours before Trump’s arrival, that Newsom could greet him at the airport, the governor was not included in a tour of Pacific Palisades where Trump met first responders and residents who lost their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when Trump later hosted a televised roundtable discussion with local officials such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and selected members of California’s congressional delegation, he kept Newsom — \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/11/newsom-desantis-debate/\">a vigorous would-be debater\u003c/a> — out of the room and off TV. That left the president free to attack the state’s environmental policies largely unchallenged, vowing “to override the Coastal Commission. I’m not going to let them get away with their antics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tension between the newly reinstalled Republican president and California’s Democratic governor — longtime political nemeses who nevertheless \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2020/09/newsom-trump-california-meeting/\">routinely worked together on disaster recovery\u003c/a> during Trump’s first term — exploded alongside the fires that have burned through Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other swaths of the Los Angeles region over the past two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor had quickly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/trump-los-angeles-fire-aid-newsom/\">extended an invitation to Trump\u003c/a> to visit Los Angeles, an effort to lower the temperature as partisan demands soared to punish California for supposedly mismanaging the disaster. But Newsom acknowledged late Thursday afternoon that he had still not heard back from the president, less than a day before his expected touchdown in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor remained outwardly optimistic about the strength of their relationship as he spoke with reporters Thursday, after \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2025/01/la-fires-relief-legislature/\">approving $2.5 billion in fire recovery funds\u003c/a> that he hopes will eventually be reimbursed by the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m glad he’s coming out here. I’m grateful that the president’s taking the time,” Newsom said. “And I hope he comes with a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. That’s the spirit to which we welcome him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘More delicate under this president’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s common for presidents and governors of opposing political parties to do battle on policy differences and then come together when natural disasters strike, said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat whose district has been badly damaged by the Palisades fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be a delicate balance under any president and certainly, it’s more delicate under this president,” he told CalMatters. “It may appear a little messy, and perhaps it is, but it’s also an integral part of our federal system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump reportedly invited California’s two Democratic U.S. senators — Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, whom he dubbed “Shifty Schiff” for investigating him during his first term — to join him in the fire zone, but they stayed in Washington, D.C., for floor votes.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“While his continued comments threatening conditions on federal aid and to eliminate FEMA are deeply concerning, we remain hopeful this visit moves the President and Congress closer to focus on relief over partisanship,” they said in a joint statement. “Americans should be able to count on our support to recover and rebuild in the wake of these tragedies, no matter what state they call home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for Newsom, he’s at a precarious moment in his relationship with the president. While he initially positioned California at the forefront of a renewed resistance after Trump won a second term in November, even calling a special session to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/11/gavin-newsom-special-session-trump-resistance/\">fund litigation against the incoming administration\u003c/a>, Newsom now finds himself dependent on the goodwill of a federal government almost fully under the sway of Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how forthcoming federal assistance will be. Since the outbreak of the Los Angeles fires more than two weeks ago, Trump has continued to inaccurately claim \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/la-fires-donald-trump-fact-check/\">that Los Angeles lacked water\u003c/a> to fight these fires because the state does not send enough water south from Northern California. He has depicted them as Newsom’s fault and even demanded that he resign, although fire and climate experts have repeatedly attributed the blazes to off-the-charts \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/dry-danger-zone-california-fires-climate-change/\">dry conditions in the face of ferocious Santa Ana winds\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, with the support of many congressional Republicans, the president has threatened to withhold or condition disaster aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump’s interest in voter ID goes back to at least 2016, when he began insisting, without any evidence, that he failed to win the deep blue state of California because \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/23/yet-again-trump-falsely-blames-illegal-voting-getting-walloped-california/\">people who aren’t citizens participated in the presidential election\u003c/a>. A new California law that took effect this year \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1174\">prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification\u003c/a> to cast their ballots in an election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1882851719710978552\">post on social media\u003c/a>, Newsom’s press office pointed out that California requires people to present identification when they register to vote and wrote, “Conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has substantially, though not entirely, pulled his punches against Trump in recent weeks. He largely kept a low profile leading up to the president’s visit, working on fire response from Los Angeles. After the president erroneously complained in Monday’s inauguration speech that the fires were burning “without even a token of defense,” Newsom issued a gentle statement that emphasized “finding common ground and striving toward shared goals” with the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the face of one of the worst natural disasters in America’s history, this moment underscores the critical need for partnership, a shared commitment to facts, and mutual respect,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet he also, on social media, slammed several of Trump’s early executive orders on immigration and climate change, then sent an email to supporters deriding the passage from Trump’s inaugural speech as “nonsense” and “insulting” to firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the governor’s special session to “safeguard California values” from the Trump administration continues on, with Democrats in the state Senate voting Thursday to advance $25 million for legal fees. Republican lawmakers have lambasted the session as a distraction from wildfire response and an unnecessary poke at the president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen, the senator from Santa Monica, said he understood that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises to the Americans who supported him, but that California politicians would be derelict if they didn’t push back, because voters had elected them with a different vision for how to run the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want, and our constituents want us, to cooperate with the federal government to help on the areas of mutual agreement and need,” he said. “The flip side is, we are also part of the loyal opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom told reporters Thursday that it was important for the state to prepare to fight Trump at the same time that he is courting the president’s help, noting that Trump “already assaulted the Fourteenth Amendment” with his day one executive order challenging birthright citizenship, which \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/california-trump-lawsuit-birthright-citizenship/\">California immediately sued to stop\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor evoked the “great relationship” he had with Trump during the COVID pandemic, when they spoke nearly every week, and said he did not expect the special session to affect that because it was “nothing personal,” but rather based on “fundamental policy disagreements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is situational. Don’t color it in any more than it needs to be,” Newsom said. “I’m here for the long haul, to support the president where we can, to defend our values where we must.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, the executive director of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, had just returned to work after a long weekend when she was notified that an anonymous postcard threatening\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/immigration\"> immigrant workers\u003c/a> had been sent to the nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The postcard sent to ALAS, which was discovered Tuesday, told workers to pack their bags because “Trump’s coming.” It also included contact information for Homeland Security and immigration enforcement, as well as a list of where undocumented persons could be found — schools, work, church, restaurants and “in your neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga, whose organization works to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021877/california-nonprofit-empowers-half-moon-bay-farmworkers-healing-resources\">empower Latino farmworkers\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay, said her initial reaction was shock and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since his inauguration this week, President Trump has moved to reshape immigration enforcement, taking the first steps toward following through on his campaign pledge of mass deportations and increased border security. In California, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021487/an-immigration-raid-in-kern-county-foreshadows-what-awaits-farmworkers-and-the-economy\">reports of federal raids and deportations\u003c/a> in cities including Bakersfield have left many in the immigrant community scared to leave their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A mom called me this morning and said her son doesn’t want to go to school. He’s crying. He’s very upset,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “This is trauma. … It’s not just threats. It’s not only political. This is a medical crisis. People are suffering because of this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three offices owned by the United Farm Workers, the largest union of its kind, also received postcards that read “report illegal aliens” and “there is nowhere to hide,” a threat aimed at the union’s undocumented laborers, KVPR reported. The same messages appeared on the postcard sent to ALAS, and they were all reportedly postmarked in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS said it reported the postcard to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, Supervisor Ray Mueller and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hate has no place in our community. Threats and intimidation will not be tolerated,” said Supervisor Ray Mueller. “I fully denounce this unacceptable act and expect it to be met with the full weight of justice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024121\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1239px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1239\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg 1239w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-800x302.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-1020x384.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-160x60.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1239px) 100vw, 1239px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anonymous postcards containing threatening messages were sent to Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS) and other immigrant worker organizations on Jan. 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Hernandez-Arriaga, the postcard serves as a devastating reminder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973730/how-a-mass-shooting-changed-half-moon-bay-one-year-later\">obstacles facing her community\u003c/a>. Wednesday marked the second anniversary of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973071/survivors-of-half-moon-bay-mass-shooting-struggle-to-rebuild-1-year-later\">a mass shooting\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay that left seven farmworkers dead, an alleged act of workplace violence that exposed laborers’ poor living conditions and low pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started the week so emotional, and we knew that this was coming,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “We cannot lose sight of the pain and the tragedy but also the tremendous contributions that our farmworkers make to all of us. Whether it’s seen or unseen, whether we see them or do not see them, everyday when we sit down to eat, our food comes from them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga said she sees this as the moment to effect change and to remind people of the important role that farmers and farm laborers play in the community and the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite producing much of California’s agricultural product, many farmworkers in San Mateo County suffer from extremely poor housing conditions and low wages. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2024 found that workers employed by the two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms where the 2023 shootings took place were being forced to sleep in cramped spaces infested by rodents and garbage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS, which Hernandez-Arriaga founded more than a decade ago, works to provide basic resources and immigration services to farmworkers, many of whom are migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. In 2022, ALAS partnered with a nonprofit developer to build affordable housing for senior farmworkers in Half Moon Bay’s downtown area.[aside postID=news_12021877 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241216-KOndaJanuary-JY-009.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was finally approved last year after considerable pushback from community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a community, we need to remember all the sentiments and feelings after what we saw two years ago and not lose sight of the commitment and the resolve that we all made to champion our farmworkers,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “We really need to make laws that protect our workers, our farmworkers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS is working with other groups and state officials to prepare for the new Trump administration. Hernandez-Arriaga said the nonprofit is hiring an immigration attorney, and organizations are also banding together to create a safety team that can provide information on potential raids and deportations to community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are also starting a “Know Your Rights” campaign to educate farmworkers who are undocumented on what they should do if they are confronted by immigration enforcement officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, elected officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023126/california-leaders-to-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-border-policies\">are pushing back against \u003c/a>the Trump administration’s attacks on sanctuary cities and immigrant communities. Emergency hotlines are available for undocumented residents who need legal assistance, and the state Senate recently approved $50 million for litigation against the federal government and legal aid for Californians at risk of deportation or detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta has already filed a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. whose parents are not citizens or legal permanent residents. The order was temporarily halted Thursday by a federal judge in a separate lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga continued: “We have to be united in this effort, in this process and in standing in solidarity with one another to do everything we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/daisynguyen\">Daisy Nguyen\u003c/a> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, the executive director of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, had just returned to work after a long weekend when she was notified that an anonymous postcard threatening\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/immigration\"> immigrant workers\u003c/a> had been sent to the nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The postcard sent to ALAS, which was discovered Tuesday, told workers to pack their bags because “Trump’s coming.” It also included contact information for Homeland Security and immigration enforcement, as well as a list of where undocumented persons could be found — schools, work, church, restaurants and “in your neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga, whose organization works to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021877/california-nonprofit-empowers-half-moon-bay-farmworkers-healing-resources\">empower Latino farmworkers\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay, said her initial reaction was shock and fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since his inauguration this week, President Trump has moved to reshape immigration enforcement, taking the first steps toward following through on his campaign pledge of mass deportations and increased border security. In California, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021487/an-immigration-raid-in-kern-county-foreshadows-what-awaits-farmworkers-and-the-economy\">reports of federal raids and deportations\u003c/a> in cities including Bakersfield have left many in the immigrant community scared to leave their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A mom called me this morning and said her son doesn’t want to go to school. He’s crying. He’s very upset,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “This is trauma. … It’s not just threats. It’s not only political. This is a medical crisis. People are suffering because of this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three offices owned by the United Farm Workers, the largest union of its kind, also received postcards that read “report illegal aliens” and “there is nowhere to hide,” a threat aimed at the union’s undocumented laborers, KVPR reported. The same messages appeared on the postcard sent to ALAS, and they were all reportedly postmarked in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS said it reported the postcard to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, Supervisor Ray Mueller and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hate has no place in our community. Threats and intimidation will not be tolerated,” said Supervisor Ray Mueller. “I fully denounce this unacceptable act and expect it to be met with the full weight of justice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024121\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1239px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1239\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo.jpg 1239w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-800x302.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-1020x384.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/IMG_9893_duo-160x60.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1239px) 100vw, 1239px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anonymous postcards containing threatening messages were sent to Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS) and other immigrant worker organizations on Jan. 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Hernandez-Arriaga, the postcard serves as a devastating reminder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973730/how-a-mass-shooting-changed-half-moon-bay-one-year-later\">obstacles facing her community\u003c/a>. Wednesday marked the second anniversary of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11973071/survivors-of-half-moon-bay-mass-shooting-struggle-to-rebuild-1-year-later\">a mass shooting\u003c/a> in Half Moon Bay that left seven farmworkers dead, an alleged act of workplace violence that exposed laborers’ poor living conditions and low pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started the week so emotional, and we knew that this was coming,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “We cannot lose sight of the pain and the tragedy but also the tremendous contributions that our farmworkers make to all of us. Whether it’s seen or unseen, whether we see them or do not see them, everyday when we sit down to eat, our food comes from them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga said she sees this as the moment to effect change and to remind people of the important role that farmers and farm laborers play in the community and the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite producing much of California’s agricultural product, many farmworkers in San Mateo County suffer from extremely poor housing conditions and low wages. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2024 found that workers employed by the two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms where the 2023 shootings took place were being forced to sleep in cramped spaces infested by rodents and garbage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS, which Hernandez-Arriaga founded more than a decade ago, works to provide basic resources and immigration services to farmworkers, many of whom are migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal status. In 2022, ALAS partnered with a nonprofit developer to build affordable housing for senior farmworkers in Half Moon Bay’s downtown area.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was finally approved last year after considerable pushback from community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a community, we need to remember all the sentiments and feelings after what we saw two years ago and not lose sight of the commitment and the resolve that we all made to champion our farmworkers,” Hernandez-Arriaga said. “We really need to make laws that protect our workers, our farmworkers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ALAS is working with other groups and state officials to prepare for the new Trump administration. Hernandez-Arriaga said the nonprofit is hiring an immigration attorney, and organizations are also banding together to create a safety team that can provide information on potential raids and deportations to community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are also starting a “Know Your Rights” campaign to educate farmworkers who are undocumented on what they should do if they are confronted by immigration enforcement officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, elected officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023126/california-leaders-to-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-border-policies\">are pushing back against \u003c/a>the Trump administration’s attacks on sanctuary cities and immigrant communities. Emergency hotlines are available for undocumented residents who need legal assistance, and the state Senate recently approved $50 million for litigation against the federal government and legal aid for Californians at risk of deportation or detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta has already filed a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. whose parents are not citizens or legal permanent residents. The order was temporarily halted Thursday by a federal judge in a separate lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hernandez-Arriaga continued: “We have to be united in this effort, in this process and in standing in solidarity with one another to do everything we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/daisynguyen\">Daisy Nguyen\u003c/a> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "an-economist-who-survived-a-wildfire-is-now-taking-on-californias-insurance-crisis",
"title": "An Economist Who Survived a Wildfire Is Now Taking on California's Insurance Crisis",
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"headTitle": "An Economist Who Survived a Wildfire Is Now Taking on California’s Insurance Crisis | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Three decades ago, Nancy Wallace narrowly escaped death in what was then California’s most destructive wildfire. Since then, the problem of wildfires has gotten much worse, so bad in fact that the state now faces a crisis in its market for home insurance. Solving the insurance crisis is something that’s very much in Wallace’s wheelhouse, and she’s been developing some important ideas and tools to try to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace is a professor of finance and real estate at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and she’s a former adviser to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7518929ced10a9f7f06a8c0ea57e929cddb1c954abd77cee9267cd15ad5db2539db1ff2d2b7789f6c0addedd6066e75004\">the U.S. Treasury Department\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75b0c04f222950d350d1e6d7870773b9a3bf30fbf2fd253aa66deda96eb6bbfc8448e9f0e97e5ffa877514308f0c876b1c\">Federal Reserve\u003c/a>. She specializes in identifying and mitigating financial risks in housing markets, and she’s conducted some eye-opening studies on the rising risk of wildfires. She’s working with climate scientists to create forecast models that can help rescue failing insurance markets. And she’s advocating for new insurance schemes and financial products that would help California homeowners retrofit their homes and lower the danger that they’re destroyed by future fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wallace’s expertise in this area is more than just academic. It’s informed by her horrifying experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A story that begins with fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 20, 1991, Wallace smelled smoke wafting in the air outside of her home, high in the hills above Oakland, Calif. The day before, a fire had broken out down her street. Firefighters had put it out, but she was now on high alert. The air felt dry. The wind was picking up. And the smell of smoke scared her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace grew up in Michigan, never experiencing the danger of wildfires. She and her husband had moved to Oakland a few years earlier when she got a job at nearby UC Berkeley. They scraped together every penny they could and bought a fixer-upper in the Oakland Hills, near the ridgeline of the mountains above the city, surrounded by Monterey pine and eucalyptus trees. They had finished remodeling their home just one month before this fateful day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After smelling smoke, Wallace and her husband grabbed family heirlooms and antiques, important documents, some paintings and clothes, and their cat. They jumped in their car. And that’s when they saw a hurricane of fire engulfing the neighborhood below them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023795\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023795\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1063\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-1536x1020.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Hills fire burned thousands of homes and created a dust cloud that could be seen for miles. Picture taken on Oct. 20, 1991. \u003ccite>(San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They turned frantic. When they hit a fork in the road, they hesitated whether to turn right or left. Both directions were being enveloped by flames. Wallace insisted they go right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seconds after going right, a car came out of the flames,” Wallace says. “And they said, “If you go up this road, you will die.” They said that power lines had fallen on a truck. A firefighter (who turned out to be Oakland Fire Battalion Chief James M. Riley Jr.) and a passenger he was trying to rescue were both dead, and the truck and power lines were blocking the road. Wallace and her husband were forced to turn around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point our cat shed her fur — literally shed her fur,” Wallace says. “Because the fire was just beating on our car. I thought for sure the car would burst into flames.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They drove the other direction, down a winding, one-lane road through the heart of the inferno. Embers were flying everywhere. Houses and trees were bursting into flames. They saw a motorcyclist on fire. They saw frantic drivers crashing into trees. They saw a heroic policeman — officer John William Grubensky, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75bce67e527b223b6b74454469a6ee4b5c4d28d4b80c1c74ca9c048c5577e51dda01054a7fea5db647bea7c09420b6d60a\">who would soon die attempting to rescue a family from a burning home\u003c/a> — on a loudspeaker, trying to keep people calm and get them out safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace and her husband got lucky. Their 6-year-old son was miles away, safe and sound during the whole ordeal. He had spent the night at a friend’s house. They were also lucky, of course, to escape with their lives. On the very same narrow street they had escaped on, vehicles after them got stuck behind a car that crashed, blocking their exit route. “Just on that one street, I think there were five people who died, along with officer Grubensky,” Wallace says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023797\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023797\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1218\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-800x609.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-1020x776.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-160x122.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-1536x1169.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Claremont Hotel in October 1991. \u003ccite>(MediaNews Group/Oakland Tribune/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>About two weeks later, Nancy and her family returned to see what happened to their home. It had turned to ash. “In the middle of this ash was a porcelain bowl,” Nancy says. Porcelain apparently doesn’t burn. “It was just sitting on top of the ash by itself. It was surreal. Everything else was gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Oakland Hills fire in 1991 ended up \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75485da7a340229be9c97f0e6420bf14a101443bb7f24e1e272415cbf09f6cfd05138067d7b96668b5ed57ec92aea7a128\">killing 25 people\u003c/a>, injuring 150 others, and destroying \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75ddd648a58c07d66aa9ddc9ec1529a704070de632598dd8b995cc7f99ca0cc8fa046ac848b82a3c3bd9ad1540bef156c9\">around 3,000 homes\u003c/a>. For a long time, it was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75cf0200df54bf0a3d6ffb6d4f929c601dfc5564db5e40f55c222340b07cef5c051e7e292a3241c323ebbd7261014e0795\">the most destructive fire\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef750b1d7065c27ee79c4534ff1929155f236c2f543cf6e8581b18e39ef69b3bc9665b6e08c77eca56ac00c49a9311d8c1ba\">California history\u003c/a>. That is, until the last decade, when California has seen a mind-boggling uptick in even more destructive fires, including \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753f8019c3c068c3eda0100d6cde825c212e8ef4b717d8666b3f4693739937c96492c750fdef03a0565e5a814432f85d38\">two in LA in recent weeks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why California properties got more valuable after fires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Around five years ago, Wallace recounted her incredible story in the Oakland Hills fire to her former PhD student Carles Vergara-Alert, who was back in Berkeley on a sabbatical as a visiting professor, and two other Berkeley economists, Richard Stanton and Paulo Issler. And it inspired them to study how the rising risk of wildfires was affecting housing markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pretty weird thing seemed to be happening to properties destroyed by fires. Nancy noticed it in her own community. After the fire, people got insurance money and rebuilt their homes. Their homes seemed to get bigger and nicer. And, like elsewhere in the Bay Area, their home values went on a rocket ship to the moon in the decades after the fire. It was like everyone had forgotten that it was still a risky area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, this was just a casual observation about one place. Wallace, Vergara-Alert, Issler, and Stanton decided they wanted to build a comprehensive dataset to see what happened, more systematically, to California housing markets after they were scorched by wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dataset they assembled is pretty amazing. After each fire in California, the state’s fire agency, Cal Fire, sends a team of technicians to investigate. They create detailed maps of the burn areas and document, house by house, damages. The economists used this rich data on burn areas between 2001 and 2015, focusing on the houses that burned and the nearby houses that did not. They combined this data with their own comprehensive data on virtually every home in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think that property prices of the houses that burned would plummet. I mean, the house is destroyed, nearby parks, trees, hiking trails, and everything else is scorched, and the home’s views become burn zones, at least in the near-to-medium term, before nature and man-made structures come back from the ashes. Even more, you might think that the risks of living in the area would be top of mind for years to come, suppressing demand to live there. But no. Houses continue to be valuable investments in these fire-prone communities. Not only that. The economists find that, between 2001 and 2015, the properties that burned down and got rebuilt were actually significantly more valuable within five years of the catastrophe. Fire actually boosted their property values![aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1994867,science_1993316,news_12022996,news_12019991\"]One sort of obvious reason for this is these rebuilt houses were newer. And they were built to follow a more modern, state-mandated building code, making them more resistant to fire and earthquakes and generally safer. And, just as Wallace had observed in her own neighborhood, these rebuilt houses tended to be bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, in big wildfires, the houses in whole neighborhoods got built back bigger and better. Because the value of your house is influenced by the value of houses in your neighborhood, that was another boost to property values. Meanwhile, nature recovers — and, Wallace says, it recovers rather quickly in areas with Mediterranean climates — and the amazing beauty of these Californian communities returns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, fires are obviously devastating in terms of lives lost, people hurt, disruptions to business, and so on. And for people who don’t have insurance, they cause huge financial losses. But — at least in the period the economists study, when, for the most part, there were functioning private insurance markets that offered full coverage and generous payouts — it seems like fires were actually a financial win for the average insured homeowner who lost their home. They were also a win for developers and construction companies, which rebuilt the homes. And they were at least partially a win for municipalities because rebuilt, more valuable homes meant higher property taxes, offsetting the tremendous taxpayer costs of fighting the fire and cleaning up afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, there was at least one huge financial loser in all of this: insurance companies. They had to foot the massive bill for home reconstructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In normal insurance markets, that’s fine. People pay premiums, and those premiums are estimated based on the probability of losses. When those losses materialize, the insurance company pays. It’s the whole game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Wallace says, something funky began happening in California’s insurance markets, and the state’s insurance system ended up breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How California’s insurance market failed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First, the state has had restrictive regulations on what insurance companies can charge. Wallace says that a big force behind that was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75935a55e5b4f983979ff21aed4f5612ec244a8152bf65baa21a39f957595996452ef222251e6f34859177d743878725d9\">Proposition 103\u003c/a>, which was championed by Ralph Nader. Back in the 1980s, Nader and other consumer activists argued that insurance companies should be strictly regulated when setting their premium rates. This ballot initiative, which was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef754836c5dd42e63930ebfddf0673a0a63f0485dd58d5d3a6a2a18676baafd08074c8a161053c7dda64fb585a2d85138ad3\">narrowly approved\u003c/a> by California voters in 1988, required insurance companies to get rate hikes approved by the California Department of Insurance, and it introduced a bunch of measures that made rate hikes much harder to impose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this post-Prop 103 regulatory scheme, for example, the state prevented insurance companies from using forward-looking estimates of risk — so-called “catastrophe models” — when setting their rates. Consumer advocates saw these kinds of models, which use computers to forecast an uncertain future, as a Trojan horse for price-gouging. The state forced insurers to only use backward-looking estimates of risk. They figured it was more transparent and fair to use hard, verifiable data from the past. The state required insurers to base their premium rates on a 20-year average of historical losses. It also prevented insurers from pricing into their premiums the cost of “reinsurance,” or insurance for insurers — something that insurers sometimes need after extreme weather events require massive payouts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With these and other measures, the California Department of Insurance effectively kept home insurance premiums artificially low. And, Nancy says, that had some big side effects, like incentivizing more people to live in fire-prone areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Prices are important, especially for things like where people locate, where houses are built,” Wallace says. Artificially low insurance prices, for example, may have encouraged cities and developers to build neighborhoods closer to the flammable wilderness. In fact, in recent decades, fire-prone areas have seen some of \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef752c85f755d7f54f2bc043d7d1d34258eba8e1c7c1ebf06fc3d30eef1874e17199f85a6715f4d26bab2a33138ba2c2c34d\">the fastest population growth\u003c/a> rates in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And greater density in fire country may have contributed, Wallace says, to problems like narrow roads prone to traffic jams, making escapes from wildfires — like the one she personally made — much harder. And this increased number of people living in fire-prone areas meant that taxpayers had to invest much more in firefighting and other public services to keep people safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a time, California’s insurance system was maybe workable. Big, destructive fires used to be rarer, so the insurance system didn’t experience as much stress. But, Wallace says, around a decade ago, there was a tipping point where big wildfires started becoming more frequent and more destructive. California has seen hotter temperatures. Droughts have increased. Wind speeds have picked up. And big, destructive fires have become more commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With climate change, it has started to become clear that the future will not look like the past, and California’s regulations requiring insurers to make pricing decisions based on backward-looking models of risk have started to look pretty dumb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a free market for insurance, a higher risk for catastrophe would result in higher insurance premiums. But since California regulations prevented that, insurance premiums stayed artificially low. As big fires began demanding big payouts and the specter of more mass destruction loomed larger, insurance companies struggled to make the math work. And so they began fleeing the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The California Department of Insurance is seriously at fault,” Wallace says. “They destroyed the markets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no ability to get standard private insurance, many Californians, especially in high-risk areas, were forced onto the state-created insurance plan of last resort, the California FAIR Plan (which is funded by private insurance companies and their policyholders in exchange for these insurers being able to sell property insurance in the state). This plan was not meant to be a permanent solution. It’s a high-risk pool. It’s expensive and it caps insurance payouts, so people with valuable properties, for example, can’t get the full value of their homes insured. (For more on the Fair Plan, listen to \u003cem>The Indicator’s\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef752def554e017046c68d64e56d9e122b948668defee7f3d98a8ca83c3b48f68959bbd53a4be40108278e4b49a01efa1366\">recent podcast\u003c/a> episode, “\u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75ad3ea8e1c631a94cbfd2f84a8bb2e0bdc5c41cb89b0aa89806246574584a2b7a19e0b2d5d203e970a6f94db4ef3aa9cb\">Who’s on the hook for California’s uninsurable homes?”\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, seeing insurers fleeing their state — and perhaps seeing the studies by Wallace and others — California regulators came to the conclusion that the state’s insurance regulations were unworkable. \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75a5ff1040268ead24f714da3ba14e4b61045ac73f797c9a64f33b8504aa92ce3015cef0a1f782e8d75cca1ae80db21f3b\">California’s insurance commissioner\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75afd08e6ec55b098466c8fb29f8a8aa0de37ff268054db7acdfbb72a833abc449d17eeefb0223deb668d431aec9134f60\">supported by Governor Gavin Newsom\u003c/a>, ended the ban on using forward-looking catastrophe models for setting premiums, giving the green light to the insurance industry to start actually trying to price in the rising risk and cost of wildfires. As part of this deal, insurers have agreed to underwrite more policies in fire-prone areas. Those changes took effect mere weeks ago, just before the outbreak of fires around Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governor Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef758d671df0f55cb759f76d79ae6a39676c82aaeb68eff8baa39485a93815c0798ffec35d920f986d03e7419e4b2504f677\">recently touted\u003c/a> the fact that, after these changes took effect, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75adaa7ecc510b1f002229dc3a5e52b0f0ba21fc0937c8de1d1ff4406e80c380209a180d0e4c2077bb2cae1b115367d0ca\">a private insurer\u003c/a> agreed to insure homes in the town of Paradise, which notoriously burned entirely to the ground in 2018 (listen to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75923982ac856c35604a589df10ac0713768007a557a138dc8bb106d3a3746a95179e17bd5973a1bde5c377a0be2a53730\">this 2021 \u003cem>Planet Money\u003c/em> episode\u003c/a> about efforts to rebuild the town).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ I thought that was an absolutely crucial step,” Wallace says of California’s recent reforms to how it regulates insurance markets. “Now we have to get to work and figure out what the true pricing should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is the right price for living in fire country?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Finding the right price for insurance premiums entails building and refining statistical models that can nail down the risks of wildfires for houses and businesses around the state. The current models, Wallace says, are not good enough. Insurance companies and the government, she says, “literally do not know” what the real risks are. There is quite a bit of uncertainty about, for example, how far fires can spread, which exact homes are the most at risk, and whether big fires in certain places are like 50- or 20- or 10-year events. Inaccurate estimates of fire risks, Wallace says, could result in premiums that are too low, as has been the case for a while in much of California, but also too high in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s why she and her colleagues at UC Berkeley, and, more specifically, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef754cff7aad12d66d30529af53e60e7510c3c8be12e3638bfe87ffabe5e31efbdeb49c9b5550a39224ede20bbbf4618d619\">Wallace’s lab\u003c/a> at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, have been building bridges across disciplines, marshaling the data and intellect of climate scientists, computer scientists, engineers, economists, and more to create high-tech models that can better estimate the risk of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s important. As we’ve seen, the costs of fire destruction are enormous. And someone has to pay for it. If homeowners want to continue living in fire-prone areas, Wallace says, they need to bear more of the risk and, in effect, pay higher insurance premiums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This risk cannot be borne exclusively by insurance companies,” Wallace says. “It’s also got to be borne by homeowners.” Bearing more of that risk would, she says, incentivize homeowners to take more actions to protect their properties (and fight what economists call “moral hazard,” or people’s tendency to not take steps to mitigate risk when they’re insured).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond just accurately pricing wildfire risks, Wallace says, the government and insurance companies should work to incentivize and help homeowners to retrofit older, more flammable homes. Wallace points to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7580942e3312338e3342964bed36821bc9734f89f945bfee110ad76ed39d07fe3c7b1d2fd55489311bdd5196c2579778fd\">a study\u003c/a> by economists Patrick Baylis and Judson Boomhower. The economists find that California houses built after the mid-1990s — and, even more, those built after 2008 — are far more likely to survive wildfires. That’s because the state strengthened its building codes during those years, requiring that homes be built with, for example, more fire-retardant siding and roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In Paradise, in Sonoma, in Napa, the Woolsey fire, the houses that survive are those with the post-2008 building code requirements,” Wallace says. “The major problem in California is that our [older] housing stock is not built to withstand the embers and the radiant heat of fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But updating California’s older housing stock is super expensive. Which is why Wallace wants policymakers and businesspeople to create new home loan programs, which would make it feasible for California homeowners to invest in making their homes more resistant to fire. She believes this could even be a money-making product for financial firms. “If you’re a bank, wouldn’t you like to invest in home loans that make the mortgages that you’re also planning to make safer?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace also hopes that, going forward, insurers could offer discounts on home insurance for taking anti-fire measures that lower risks, further incentivizing homeowners to protect their homes and reduce costs. This could be facilitated by technological innovations. For example, Wallace points to a former grad student of hers who actually created an app, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753a638d8caa455b595774d9f5ced2a81e82649b882d660f362509fd0d031d668c994a9f0acd398e197f15bb4e72a30e37\">Firebreak\u003c/a>, which helps homeowners identify fire risks around their properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens after the fires in the LA hills?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As Wallace and her colleagues found in their study, for a long time, California homes that were destroyed by fires ended up getting bigger, better, and more valuable. Will the same thing happen again in the LA hills after the latest shocking fires?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace suggests that it’s possible this time is different. For one, “We don’t have that insurance market anymore,” Wallace says. “It’s been broken by not allowing firms to price the risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the LA hills were forced off of private insurance policies that gave them full coverage, and they had to turn to the California FAIR Plan, which caps residential coverage at $3 million. There are a significant number of destroyed homes in the LA hills that were worth more than that. Wallace also points to less affluent neighborhoods, like Altadena, where many homeowners did not have insurance (only people with mortgages are required to have fire casualty insurance). Absent some sort of government help, many fire victims will likely be unable to afford reconstruction. In the wake of natural disasters, construction costs tend to surge because tons of people need to build all at once and there are shortages of everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another big cost will be building back better. If the city and state are being sensible, Wallace says, they will make investments in better infrastructure, like a less fire-prone electricity grid and better water systems to fight fires, making it less likely for future fires to break out and spread. Even more, she says, the state should continue mandating that builders of new houses follow the building code that’s proven to be more resilient to fires. “It’s absolutely nonsensical to build back in the same risky way,” Wallace says. (Gov. Gavin Newsom recently issued \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7510e032185965f148774b9357ac305ff7e327c20e50c1642e00232677078a240787be1e9855470a8a23ef7d9d75f34500\">a vague executive order\u003c/a> on this issue, directing state agencies to waive building regulations to speed up construction, but only those regulations “that can safely be suspended.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of high costs and more limited insurance coverage and other factors, Wallace says, there may be fewer homes built in the L.A. neighborhoods devastated by fires. And, with higher insurance premiums reflecting the risk for buildings there, these neighborhoods will likely become even more exclusive dens for the rich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the current tragic circumstances, however, these burned-down neighborhoods still have a lot going for them. Their views of the ocean and the city are often incredible. Their charred parks and hiking trails will recover. And they’re still close to a legendary metropolis, with a vibrant culture, an incredible economy, and a housing shortage. The land in the L.A. hills is still very valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“L.A. is a major, metropolitan, gateway city of the world,” Wallace says. “And it is not going away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And whether it’s floods or tornados or earthquakes or wildfires, human beings have a remarkable knack for comfortably living in areas with lots of risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace expects that, if the state pursues the right path to make these neighborhoods more resilient to future fires and follows through with fixing the state’s broken insurance system, destroyed properties in the LA hills will be rebuilt, insurable in the private market, and they’ll eventually “return to trajectory,” increasing in value like they were in the years preceding the devastation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the victims who lost everything in the fires, Wallace, reflecting on her own experience losing her home, advises people to begin creating inventories of the things they lost and working with builders to get real estimates of the costs to rebuild, keeping in mind that construction costs will likely climb as everyone else seeks to rebuild. Such information can be critical for getting adequate payouts. Insurers may provide a vital service, she suggests, but they’re not really your friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. NPR’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753cb9c306d51ac1990911bcebbb0b528f00f65bbeab48dcc02179139055944fdf71b0ce45e6af81dc02169f3fd4392388\">\u003cem>most recent Planet Money episode\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> has more on the fires in California. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "An Economist Who Survived a Wildfire Is Now Taking on California's Insurance Crisis | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Three decades ago, Nancy Wallace narrowly escaped death in what was then California’s most destructive wildfire. Since then, the problem of wildfires has gotten much worse, so bad in fact that the state now faces a crisis in its market for home insurance. Solving the insurance crisis is something that’s very much in Wallace’s wheelhouse, and she’s been developing some important ideas and tools to try to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace is a professor of finance and real estate at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and she’s a former adviser to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7518929ced10a9f7f06a8c0ea57e929cddb1c954abd77cee9267cd15ad5db2539db1ff2d2b7789f6c0addedd6066e75004\">the U.S. Treasury Department\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75b0c04f222950d350d1e6d7870773b9a3bf30fbf2fd253aa66deda96eb6bbfc8448e9f0e97e5ffa877514308f0c876b1c\">Federal Reserve\u003c/a>. She specializes in identifying and mitigating financial risks in housing markets, and she’s conducted some eye-opening studies on the rising risk of wildfires. She’s working with climate scientists to create forecast models that can help rescue failing insurance markets. And she’s advocating for new insurance schemes and financial products that would help California homeowners retrofit their homes and lower the danger that they’re destroyed by future fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wallace’s expertise in this area is more than just academic. It’s informed by her horrifying experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A story that begins with fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 20, 1991, Wallace smelled smoke wafting in the air outside of her home, high in the hills above Oakland, Calif. The day before, a fire had broken out down her street. Firefighters had put it out, but she was now on high alert. The air felt dry. The wind was picking up. And the smell of smoke scared her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace grew up in Michigan, never experiencing the danger of wildfires. She and her husband had moved to Oakland a few years earlier when she got a job at nearby UC Berkeley. They scraped together every penny they could and bought a fixer-upper in the Oakland Hills, near the ridgeline of the mountains above the city, surrounded by Monterey pine and eucalyptus trees. They had finished remodeling their home just one month before this fateful day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After smelling smoke, Wallace and her husband grabbed family heirlooms and antiques, important documents, some paintings and clothes, and their cat. They jumped in their car. And that’s when they saw a hurricane of fire engulfing the neighborhood below them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023795\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023795\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1063\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-53-1536x1020.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Hills fire burned thousands of homes and created a dust cloud that could be seen for miles. Picture taken on Oct. 20, 1991. \u003ccite>(San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They turned frantic. When they hit a fork in the road, they hesitated whether to turn right or left. Both directions were being enveloped by flames. Wallace insisted they go right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Seconds after going right, a car came out of the flames,” Wallace says. “And they said, “If you go up this road, you will die.” They said that power lines had fallen on a truck. A firefighter (who turned out to be Oakland Fire Battalion Chief James M. Riley Jr.) and a passenger he was trying to rescue were both dead, and the truck and power lines were blocking the road. Wallace and her husband were forced to turn around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At that point our cat shed her fur — literally shed her fur,” Wallace says. “Because the fire was just beating on our car. I thought for sure the car would burst into flames.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They drove the other direction, down a winding, one-lane road through the heart of the inferno. Embers were flying everywhere. Houses and trees were bursting into flames. They saw a motorcyclist on fire. They saw frantic drivers crashing into trees. They saw a heroic policeman — officer John William Grubensky, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75bce67e527b223b6b74454469a6ee4b5c4d28d4b80c1c74ca9c048c5577e51dda01054a7fea5db647bea7c09420b6d60a\">who would soon die attempting to rescue a family from a burning home\u003c/a> — on a loudspeaker, trying to keep people calm and get them out safely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace and her husband got lucky. Their 6-year-old son was miles away, safe and sound during the whole ordeal. He had spent the night at a friend’s house. They were also lucky, of course, to escape with their lives. On the very same narrow street they had escaped on, vehicles after them got stuck behind a car that crashed, blocking their exit route. “Just on that one street, I think there were five people who died, along with officer Grubensky,” Wallace says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023797\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023797\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1218\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-800x609.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-1020x776.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-160x122.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-54-1536x1169.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Claremont Hotel in October 1991. \u003ccite>(MediaNews Group/Oakland Tribune/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>About two weeks later, Nancy and her family returned to see what happened to their home. It had turned to ash. “In the middle of this ash was a porcelain bowl,” Nancy says. Porcelain apparently doesn’t burn. “It was just sitting on top of the ash by itself. It was surreal. Everything else was gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Oakland Hills fire in 1991 ended up \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75485da7a340229be9c97f0e6420bf14a101443bb7f24e1e272415cbf09f6cfd05138067d7b96668b5ed57ec92aea7a128\">killing 25 people\u003c/a>, injuring 150 others, and destroying \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75ddd648a58c07d66aa9ddc9ec1529a704070de632598dd8b995cc7f99ca0cc8fa046ac848b82a3c3bd9ad1540bef156c9\">around 3,000 homes\u003c/a>. For a long time, it was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75cf0200df54bf0a3d6ffb6d4f929c601dfc5564db5e40f55c222340b07cef5c051e7e292a3241c323ebbd7261014e0795\">the most destructive fire\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef750b1d7065c27ee79c4534ff1929155f236c2f543cf6e8581b18e39ef69b3bc9665b6e08c77eca56ac00c49a9311d8c1ba\">California history\u003c/a>. That is, until the last decade, when California has seen a mind-boggling uptick in even more destructive fires, including \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753f8019c3c068c3eda0100d6cde825c212e8ef4b717d8666b3f4693739937c96492c750fdef03a0565e5a814432f85d38\">two in LA in recent weeks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why California properties got more valuable after fires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Around five years ago, Wallace recounted her incredible story in the Oakland Hills fire to her former PhD student Carles Vergara-Alert, who was back in Berkeley on a sabbatical as a visiting professor, and two other Berkeley economists, Richard Stanton and Paulo Issler. And it inspired them to study how the rising risk of wildfires was affecting housing markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A pretty weird thing seemed to be happening to properties destroyed by fires. Nancy noticed it in her own community. After the fire, people got insurance money and rebuilt their homes. Their homes seemed to get bigger and nicer. And, like elsewhere in the Bay Area, their home values went on a rocket ship to the moon in the decades after the fire. It was like everyone had forgotten that it was still a risky area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, this was just a casual observation about one place. Wallace, Vergara-Alert, Issler, and Stanton decided they wanted to build a comprehensive dataset to see what happened, more systematically, to California housing markets after they were scorched by wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dataset they assembled is pretty amazing. After each fire in California, the state’s fire agency, Cal Fire, sends a team of technicians to investigate. They create detailed maps of the burn areas and document, house by house, damages. The economists used this rich data on burn areas between 2001 and 2015, focusing on the houses that burned and the nearby houses that did not. They combined this data with their own comprehensive data on virtually every home in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think that property prices of the houses that burned would plummet. I mean, the house is destroyed, nearby parks, trees, hiking trails, and everything else is scorched, and the home’s views become burn zones, at least in the near-to-medium term, before nature and man-made structures come back from the ashes. Even more, you might think that the risks of living in the area would be top of mind for years to come, suppressing demand to live there. But no. Houses continue to be valuable investments in these fire-prone communities. Not only that. The economists find that, between 2001 and 2015, the properties that burned down and got rebuilt were actually significantly more valuable within five years of the catastrophe. Fire actually boosted their property values!\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>One sort of obvious reason for this is these rebuilt houses were newer. And they were built to follow a more modern, state-mandated building code, making them more resistant to fire and earthquakes and generally safer. And, just as Wallace had observed in her own neighborhood, these rebuilt houses tended to be bigger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, in big wildfires, the houses in whole neighborhoods got built back bigger and better. Because the value of your house is influenced by the value of houses in your neighborhood, that was another boost to property values. Meanwhile, nature recovers — and, Wallace says, it recovers rather quickly in areas with Mediterranean climates — and the amazing beauty of these Californian communities returns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, fires are obviously devastating in terms of lives lost, people hurt, disruptions to business, and so on. And for people who don’t have insurance, they cause huge financial losses. But — at least in the period the economists study, when, for the most part, there were functioning private insurance markets that offered full coverage and generous payouts — it seems like fires were actually a financial win for the average insured homeowner who lost their home. They were also a win for developers and construction companies, which rebuilt the homes. And they were at least partially a win for municipalities because rebuilt, more valuable homes meant higher property taxes, offsetting the tremendous taxpayer costs of fighting the fire and cleaning up afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, there was at least one huge financial loser in all of this: insurance companies. They had to foot the massive bill for home reconstructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In normal insurance markets, that’s fine. People pay premiums, and those premiums are estimated based on the probability of losses. When those losses materialize, the insurance company pays. It’s the whole game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Wallace says, something funky began happening in California’s insurance markets, and the state’s insurance system ended up breaking down.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How California’s insurance market failed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First, the state has had restrictive regulations on what insurance companies can charge. Wallace says that a big force behind that was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75935a55e5b4f983979ff21aed4f5612ec244a8152bf65baa21a39f957595996452ef222251e6f34859177d743878725d9\">Proposition 103\u003c/a>, which was championed by Ralph Nader. Back in the 1980s, Nader and other consumer activists argued that insurance companies should be strictly regulated when setting their premium rates. This ballot initiative, which was \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef754836c5dd42e63930ebfddf0673a0a63f0485dd58d5d3a6a2a18676baafd08074c8a161053c7dda64fb585a2d85138ad3\">narrowly approved\u003c/a> by California voters in 1988, required insurance companies to get rate hikes approved by the California Department of Insurance, and it introduced a bunch of measures that made rate hikes much harder to impose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this post-Prop 103 regulatory scheme, for example, the state prevented insurance companies from using forward-looking estimates of risk — so-called “catastrophe models” — when setting their rates. Consumer advocates saw these kinds of models, which use computers to forecast an uncertain future, as a Trojan horse for price-gouging. The state forced insurers to only use backward-looking estimates of risk. They figured it was more transparent and fair to use hard, verifiable data from the past. The state required insurers to base their premium rates on a 20-year average of historical losses. It also prevented insurers from pricing into their premiums the cost of “reinsurance,” or insurance for insurers — something that insurers sometimes need after extreme weather events require massive payouts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With these and other measures, the California Department of Insurance effectively kept home insurance premiums artificially low. And, Nancy says, that had some big side effects, like incentivizing more people to live in fire-prone areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Prices are important, especially for things like where people locate, where houses are built,” Wallace says. Artificially low insurance prices, for example, may have encouraged cities and developers to build neighborhoods closer to the flammable wilderness. In fact, in recent decades, fire-prone areas have seen some of \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef752c85f755d7f54f2bc043d7d1d34258eba8e1c7c1ebf06fc3d30eef1874e17199f85a6715f4d26bab2a33138ba2c2c34d\">the fastest population growth\u003c/a> rates in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And greater density in fire country may have contributed, Wallace says, to problems like narrow roads prone to traffic jams, making escapes from wildfires — like the one she personally made — much harder. And this increased number of people living in fire-prone areas meant that taxpayers had to invest much more in firefighting and other public services to keep people safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a time, California’s insurance system was maybe workable. Big, destructive fires used to be rarer, so the insurance system didn’t experience as much stress. But, Wallace says, around a decade ago, there was a tipping point where big wildfires started becoming more frequent and more destructive. California has seen hotter temperatures. Droughts have increased. Wind speeds have picked up. And big, destructive fires have become more commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With climate change, it has started to become clear that the future will not look like the past, and California’s regulations requiring insurers to make pricing decisions based on backward-looking models of risk have started to look pretty dumb.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a free market for insurance, a higher risk for catastrophe would result in higher insurance premiums. But since California regulations prevented that, insurance premiums stayed artificially low. As big fires began demanding big payouts and the specter of more mass destruction loomed larger, insurance companies struggled to make the math work. And so they began fleeing the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The California Department of Insurance is seriously at fault,” Wallace says. “They destroyed the markets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no ability to get standard private insurance, many Californians, especially in high-risk areas, were forced onto the state-created insurance plan of last resort, the California FAIR Plan (which is funded by private insurance companies and their policyholders in exchange for these insurers being able to sell property insurance in the state). This plan was not meant to be a permanent solution. It’s a high-risk pool. It’s expensive and it caps insurance payouts, so people with valuable properties, for example, can’t get the full value of their homes insured. (For more on the Fair Plan, listen to \u003cem>The Indicator’s\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef752def554e017046c68d64e56d9e122b948668defee7f3d98a8ca83c3b48f68959bbd53a4be40108278e4b49a01efa1366\">recent podcast\u003c/a> episode, “\u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75ad3ea8e1c631a94cbfd2f84a8bb2e0bdc5c41cb89b0aa89806246574584a2b7a19e0b2d5d203e970a6f94db4ef3aa9cb\">Who’s on the hook for California’s uninsurable homes?”\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, seeing insurers fleeing their state — and perhaps seeing the studies by Wallace and others — California regulators came to the conclusion that the state’s insurance regulations were unworkable. \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75a5ff1040268ead24f714da3ba14e4b61045ac73f797c9a64f33b8504aa92ce3015cef0a1f782e8d75cca1ae80db21f3b\">California’s insurance commissioner\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75afd08e6ec55b098466c8fb29f8a8aa0de37ff268054db7acdfbb72a833abc449d17eeefb0223deb668d431aec9134f60\">supported by Governor Gavin Newsom\u003c/a>, ended the ban on using forward-looking catastrophe models for setting premiums, giving the green light to the insurance industry to start actually trying to price in the rising risk and cost of wildfires. As part of this deal, insurers have agreed to underwrite more policies in fire-prone areas. Those changes took effect mere weeks ago, just before the outbreak of fires around Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governor Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef758d671df0f55cb759f76d79ae6a39676c82aaeb68eff8baa39485a93815c0798ffec35d920f986d03e7419e4b2504f677\">recently touted\u003c/a> the fact that, after these changes took effect, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75adaa7ecc510b1f002229dc3a5e52b0f0ba21fc0937c8de1d1ff4406e80c380209a180d0e4c2077bb2cae1b115367d0ca\">a private insurer\u003c/a> agreed to insure homes in the town of Paradise, which notoriously burned entirely to the ground in 2018 (listen to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef75923982ac856c35604a589df10ac0713768007a557a138dc8bb106d3a3746a95179e17bd5973a1bde5c377a0be2a53730\">this 2021 \u003cem>Planet Money\u003c/em> episode\u003c/a> about efforts to rebuild the town).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ I thought that was an absolutely crucial step,” Wallace says of California’s recent reforms to how it regulates insurance markets. “Now we have to get to work and figure out what the true pricing should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is the right price for living in fire country?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Finding the right price for insurance premiums entails building and refining statistical models that can nail down the risks of wildfires for houses and businesses around the state. The current models, Wallace says, are not good enough. Insurance companies and the government, she says, “literally do not know” what the real risks are. There is quite a bit of uncertainty about, for example, how far fires can spread, which exact homes are the most at risk, and whether big fires in certain places are like 50- or 20- or 10-year events. Inaccurate estimates of fire risks, Wallace says, could result in premiums that are too low, as has been the case for a while in much of California, but also too high in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s why she and her colleagues at UC Berkeley, and, more specifically, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef754cff7aad12d66d30529af53e60e7510c3c8be12e3638bfe87ffabe5e31efbdeb49c9b5550a39224ede20bbbf4618d619\">Wallace’s lab\u003c/a> at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, have been building bridges across disciplines, marshaling the data and intellect of climate scientists, computer scientists, engineers, economists, and more to create high-tech models that can better estimate the risk of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s important. As we’ve seen, the costs of fire destruction are enormous. And someone has to pay for it. If homeowners want to continue living in fire-prone areas, Wallace says, they need to bear more of the risk and, in effect, pay higher insurance premiums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This risk cannot be borne exclusively by insurance companies,” Wallace says. “It’s also got to be borne by homeowners.” Bearing more of that risk would, she says, incentivize homeowners to take more actions to protect their properties (and fight what economists call “moral hazard,” or people’s tendency to not take steps to mitigate risk when they’re insured).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond just accurately pricing wildfire risks, Wallace says, the government and insurance companies should work to incentivize and help homeowners to retrofit older, more flammable homes. Wallace points to \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7580942e3312338e3342964bed36821bc9734f89f945bfee110ad76ed39d07fe3c7b1d2fd55489311bdd5196c2579778fd\">a study\u003c/a> by economists Patrick Baylis and Judson Boomhower. The economists find that California houses built after the mid-1990s — and, even more, those built after 2008 — are far more likely to survive wildfires. That’s because the state strengthened its building codes during those years, requiring that homes be built with, for example, more fire-retardant siding and roofs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In Paradise, in Sonoma, in Napa, the Woolsey fire, the houses that survive are those with the post-2008 building code requirements,” Wallace says. “The major problem in California is that our [older] housing stock is not built to withstand the embers and the radiant heat of fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But updating California’s older housing stock is super expensive. Which is why Wallace wants policymakers and businesspeople to create new home loan programs, which would make it feasible for California homeowners to invest in making their homes more resistant to fire. She believes this could even be a money-making product for financial firms. “If you’re a bank, wouldn’t you like to invest in home loans that make the mortgages that you’re also planning to make safer?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace also hopes that, going forward, insurers could offer discounts on home insurance for taking anti-fire measures that lower risks, further incentivizing homeowners to protect their homes and reduce costs. This could be facilitated by technological innovations. For example, Wallace points to a former grad student of hers who actually created an app, \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753a638d8caa455b595774d9f5ced2a81e82649b882d660f362509fd0d031d668c994a9f0acd398e197f15bb4e72a30e37\">Firebreak\u003c/a>, which helps homeowners identify fire risks around their properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens after the fires in the LA hills?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As Wallace and her colleagues found in their study, for a long time, California homes that were destroyed by fires ended up getting bigger, better, and more valuable. Will the same thing happen again in the LA hills after the latest shocking fires?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace suggests that it’s possible this time is different. For one, “We don’t have that insurance market anymore,” Wallace says. “It’s been broken by not allowing firms to price the risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the LA hills were forced off of private insurance policies that gave them full coverage, and they had to turn to the California FAIR Plan, which caps residential coverage at $3 million. There are a significant number of destroyed homes in the LA hills that were worth more than that. Wallace also points to less affluent neighborhoods, like Altadena, where many homeowners did not have insurance (only people with mortgages are required to have fire casualty insurance). Absent some sort of government help, many fire victims will likely be unable to afford reconstruction. In the wake of natural disasters, construction costs tend to surge because tons of people need to build all at once and there are shortages of everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another big cost will be building back better. If the city and state are being sensible, Wallace says, they will make investments in better infrastructure, like a less fire-prone electricity grid and better water systems to fight fires, making it less likely for future fires to break out and spread. Even more, she says, the state should continue mandating that builders of new houses follow the building code that’s proven to be more resilient to fires. “It’s absolutely nonsensical to build back in the same risky way,” Wallace says. (Gov. Gavin Newsom recently issued \u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef7510e032185965f148774b9357ac305ff7e327c20e50c1642e00232677078a240787be1e9855470a8a23ef7d9d75f34500\">a vague executive order\u003c/a> on this issue, directing state agencies to waive building regulations to speed up construction, but only those regulations “that can safely be suspended.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of high costs and more limited insurance coverage and other factors, Wallace says, there may be fewer homes built in the L.A. neighborhoods devastated by fires. And, with higher insurance premiums reflecting the risk for buildings there, these neighborhoods will likely become even more exclusive dens for the rich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the current tragic circumstances, however, these burned-down neighborhoods still have a lot going for them. Their views of the ocean and the city are often incredible. Their charred parks and hiking trails will recover. And they’re still close to a legendary metropolis, with a vibrant culture, an incredible economy, and a housing shortage. The land in the L.A. hills is still very valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“L.A. is a major, metropolitan, gateway city of the world,” Wallace says. “And it is not going away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And whether it’s floods or tornados or earthquakes or wildfires, human beings have a remarkable knack for comfortably living in areas with lots of risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wallace expects that, if the state pursues the right path to make these neighborhoods more resilient to future fires and follows through with fixing the state’s broken insurance system, destroyed properties in the LA hills will be rebuilt, insurable in the private market, and they’ll eventually “return to trajectory,” increasing in value like they were in the years preceding the devastation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the victims who lost everything in the fires, Wallace, reflecting on her own experience losing her home, advises people to begin creating inventories of the things they lost and working with builders to get real estimates of the costs to rebuild, keeping in mind that construction costs will likely climb as everyone else seeks to rebuild. Such information can be critical for getting adequate payouts. Insurers may provide a vital service, she suggests, but they’re not really your friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. NPR’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=f4ba191b448cef753cb9c306d51ac1990911bcebbb0b528f00f65bbeab48dcc02179139055944fdf71b0ce45e6af81dc02169f3fd4392388\">\u003cem>most recent Planet Money episode\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> has more on the fires in California. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "evacuations-ordered-as-new-fast-moving-wildfire-threatens-mountain-homes-north-of-los-angeles",
"title": "Over 50,000 Under Evacuation Orders or Warnings as Wildfire Imperils Homes North of Los Angeles",
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"headTitle": "Over 50,000 Under Evacuation Orders or Warnings as Wildfire Imperils Homes North of Los Angeles | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:30 p.m. Wednesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 50,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings Wednesday as a huge and fast-moving wildfire swept through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles, as parched Southern California endured another round of dangerous winds and two major previous blazes continued to smolder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hughes Fire broke out in the late morning and within hours charred more than 15 square miles of trees and brush, sending up plumes of dark smoke near Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area about 40 miles from the devastating \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-volunteer-victims-3cc6e6453fe65813a162692b7b59d088\">Eaton and Palisades fires\u003c/a> that are burning for a third week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 31,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, and another 23,000 are under evacuation warnings, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said the fire remains difficult to contain but firefighters are getting the upper hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parts of Interstate 5 that had been closed will shortly be reopened, Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 30-mile stretch of Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, was closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into wooded canyons. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving across the interstate and toward Castaic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winds in the area were gusting at 42 mph in the afternoon but were expected to increase to 60 mph by later in the evening and Thursday, the National Weather Service said on the social platform X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kayla Amara drove to Castaic’s Stonegate neighborhood to collect items from the home of a friend who had rushed to pick up her daughter at preschool. As Amara was packing the car, she learned the fire had exploded in size and decided to hose down the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Other people are hosing down their houses, too. I hope there’s a house here to return to,” Amara said as police cars raced through the streets and flames engulfed trees on a hillside in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023665\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023665\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters works to contain the Hughes Fire as it draws nearer to a neighborhood on Jan. 22, 2025 in Castaic, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Amara, a nurse who lives in nearby Valencia, said she’s been on edge for weeks as major blazes devastated Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been stressful with those other fires, but now that this one is close to home it’s just super stressful,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the south, Los Angeles officials began to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">prepare for potential rain\u003c/a> even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-volunteer-victims-3cc6e6453fe65813a162692b7b59d088\">Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas\u003c/a>. Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday and precipitation was possible starting Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rains are in the forecast and the threat of mud and debris flow in our fire-impacted communities is real,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said during a Wednesday morning news conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews were filling sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"forum_2010101908436,news_12022708,news_12021661\"]Red flag warnings for critical fire risk were extended through 10 a.m. Friday in L.A. and Ventura counties. Officials remained concerned that the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-3a20ed3149cfeebd91dd462fb64ebb51\">Palisades and Eaton fires\u003c/a> could break their \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-terms-contained-acc21dd0f6824df715caff1e46918eda\">containment\u003c/a> lines as firefighters continue watching for hot spots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned that winds could carry ash and advised Angelenos to visit \u003ca href=\"https://lacity.gov/\">the city’s website\u003c/a> to learn how to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-health-california-wildfire-air-quality-smoke-a77db04196ebfadd483527cc1cf2be71\">protect themselves from toxic air\u003c/a> during the latest Santa Ana wind event. L.A. County public health director Barbara Ferrer cautioned that the ash could contain heavy metals, arsenic and other harmful materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even a brief exposure can potentially cause skin irritation and lead to more serious problems,” Ferrer said Wednesday, asking people to wear protective gear while cleaning up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The low humidity, bone-dry vegetation and strong winds came as firefighters continued battling the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-victim-zhao-altadena-a59f2cf70d1b0f6736b4819031b3727c\">killed at least 28 people\u003c/a> and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out Jan. 7. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 68%, and the Eaton Fire was at 91%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said Wednesday that his department was still investigating 22 active missing person reports in both fire zones. All of those reported missing are adults, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the causes of the fires but has not released any findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023553\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023553\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"644\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-800x503.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-1020x641.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-160x101.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plume of smoke from the new Hughes fire is seen above the hills from the Magic Mountain exit of Interstate 5 freeway in Valencia on Jan. 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/eaton-fire-cause-lawsuit-altadena-b247b3cfce1e1ea90ef9d66abda1bf28\">Several lawsuits have been filed\u003c/a> by people who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire, alleging Southern California Edison’s equipment sparked the blaze. On Tuesday, a judge overseeing one of the lawsuits ordered the utility to produce data from circuits in the area where the fire started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Ethan Swope in Castaic, Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Hughes Fire broke out late Wednesday morning. It quickly burned through more than 15 square miles of trees and brush.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:30 p.m. Wednesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 50,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings Wednesday as a huge and fast-moving wildfire swept through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles, as parched Southern California endured another round of dangerous winds and two major previous blazes continued to smolder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hughes Fire broke out in the late morning and within hours charred more than 15 square miles of trees and brush, sending up plumes of dark smoke near Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area about 40 miles from the devastating \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-volunteer-victims-3cc6e6453fe65813a162692b7b59d088\">Eaton and Palisades fires\u003c/a> that are burning for a third week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 31,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, and another 23,000 are under evacuation warnings, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said the fire remains difficult to contain but firefighters are getting the upper hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parts of Interstate 5 that had been closed will shortly be reopened, Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 30-mile stretch of Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, was closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into wooded canyons. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving across the interstate and toward Castaic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winds in the area were gusting at 42 mph in the afternoon but were expected to increase to 60 mph by later in the evening and Thursday, the National Weather Service said on the social platform X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kayla Amara drove to Castaic’s Stonegate neighborhood to collect items from the home of a friend who had rushed to pick up her daughter at preschool. As Amara was packing the car, she learned the fire had exploded in size and decided to hose down the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Other people are hosing down their houses, too. I hope there’s a house here to return to,” Amara said as police cars raced through the streets and flames engulfed trees on a hillside in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023665\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023665\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2195374303-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters works to contain the Hughes Fire as it draws nearer to a neighborhood on Jan. 22, 2025 in Castaic, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Amara, a nurse who lives in nearby Valencia, said she’s been on edge for weeks as major blazes devastated Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been stressful with those other fires, but now that this one is close to home it’s just super stressful,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the south, Los Angeles officials began to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">prepare for potential rain\u003c/a> even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-volunteer-victims-3cc6e6453fe65813a162692b7b59d088\">Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas\u003c/a>. Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday and precipitation was possible starting Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rains are in the forecast and the threat of mud and debris flow in our fire-impacted communities is real,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said during a Wednesday morning news conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews were filling sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Red flag warnings for critical fire risk were extended through 10 a.m. Friday in L.A. and Ventura counties. Officials remained concerned that the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-3a20ed3149cfeebd91dd462fb64ebb51\">Palisades and Eaton fires\u003c/a> could break their \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-terms-contained-acc21dd0f6824df715caff1e46918eda\">containment\u003c/a> lines as firefighters continue watching for hot spots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned that winds could carry ash and advised Angelenos to visit \u003ca href=\"https://lacity.gov/\">the city’s website\u003c/a> to learn how to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-health-california-wildfire-air-quality-smoke-a77db04196ebfadd483527cc1cf2be71\">protect themselves from toxic air\u003c/a> during the latest Santa Ana wind event. L.A. County public health director Barbara Ferrer cautioned that the ash could contain heavy metals, arsenic and other harmful materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even a brief exposure can potentially cause skin irritation and lead to more serious problems,” Ferrer said Wednesday, asking people to wear protective gear while cleaning up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The low humidity, bone-dry vegetation and strong winds came as firefighters continued battling the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-victim-zhao-altadena-a59f2cf70d1b0f6736b4819031b3727c\">killed at least 28 people\u003c/a> and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out Jan. 7. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 68%, and the Eaton Fire was at 91%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said Wednesday that his department was still investigating 22 active missing person reports in both fire zones. All of those reported missing are adults, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is investigating the causes of the fires but has not released any findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023553\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023553\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"644\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-800x503.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-1020x641.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194717143-160x101.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plume of smoke from the new Hughes fire is seen above the hills from the Magic Mountain exit of Interstate 5 freeway in Valencia on Jan. 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/eaton-fire-cause-lawsuit-altadena-b247b3cfce1e1ea90ef9d66abda1bf28\">Several lawsuits have been filed\u003c/a> by people who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire, alleging Southern California Edison’s equipment sparked the blaze. On Tuesday, a judge overseeing one of the lawsuits ordered the utility to produce data from circuits in the area where the fire started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Ethan Swope in Castaic, Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Paradise’s Recovery From the Camp Fire Holds Lessons for LA",
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"content": "\u003cp>You get a glimpse of the road ahead for Los Angeles after its wildfires by looking at a town that has already traveled it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed about 11,000 homes in Paradise, Calif. and killed 85 people. The mountain town in the Sierra Nevada foothills is still recovering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One person working on Paradise’s revival is Jenn Goodlin. She grew up there, and six years ago, she was living out of state, as almost her entire hometown burned to the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt so helpless in Colorado. Like, how many Target gift cards can I send, right?” Goodlin said, speaking to NPR’s \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A visit to Paradise later on made it clear to Goodlin that the best way to help Paradise was to move back and build a home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023495\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 160px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-12023495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8-160x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jen Goodlin, executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, poses with a mural depicting a sunset from handprints of local children, at Paradise Community Park in November 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jen Goodlin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Dragged my family along, my four children and my husband and said, ‘how about we leave our great life and move to a burnt-down town and live in a trailer for two and a half years?'” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She volunteered, helping people get food or sheds to store their tools. Then she took a job as executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, which finds money to help with rebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While most people never have to build a custom home in their lives, suddenly a town of thousands \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1209471739/a-california-town-wiped-off-the-map-by-wildfire-is-still-recovering-five-years-o\">needed funding and knowledge of the basic, bureaucratic hurdles of construction\u003c/a>. The foundation would write people checks to pay for surveys, architecture and engineering fees and permit fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Septic was hit heavily, very expensive,” Goodlin said. \u003ca href=\"https://krcrtv.com/news/local/sewer-project-on-hold-for-town-of-paradise\">Without a sewer system\u003c/a>, Paradise relies on septic tanks. “We wanted to ease that burden.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goodlin said the foundation has a library of floor plans pre-approved by the town and county to help residents break ground more quickly. She said almost 200 new homes have relied on those floor plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many residents run into roadblocks with insurance companies that hesitate to cover homes in the so-called “wildland-urban interface” that is prone to fires. To make homes more resilient and more insurable, the foundation gave residents vouchers for gravel to lay down in the 5 feet surrounding their homes.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"forum_2010101908557,news_12015150,news_12021661\"]The nitty gritty of building and hardening homes has translated to growth. The \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2021-2024-with-2020-census-benchmark/\">California Department of Finance\u003c/a>, which estimates populations in the state, said Paradise grew from fewer than 5,000 people in 2020 to nearly 11,000 in 2024. That’s still far from \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2011-2020-with-2010-census-benchmark-new/\">a pre-Camp Fire population\u003c/a> of more than 26,000 in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the ground in Paradise, Goodlin has seen more\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>young families and children in town, noting that the Paradise Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://krcrtv.com/news/local/cedarwood-elementary-in-magalia-unveils-upgraded-27-million-campus-ahead-of-school-year\">opened a new elementary school\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goodlin’s advice for people in Los Angeles who talk of rebuilding homes is to take it one step at a time. She hopes Paradise’s story can be a survival guide for Altadena and Pacific Palisades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are here. Like, we have gone through it — similar but different,” she said. “How can we help you now? People came to our side as well. But that’s now our job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was edited by Obed Manuel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "What Los Angeles can learn from the experience of Paradise, a community that has spent more than six years recovering from the Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed 11,000 homes.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>You get a glimpse of the road ahead for Los Angeles after its wildfires by looking at a town that has already traveled it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed about 11,000 homes in Paradise, Calif. and killed 85 people. The mountain town in the Sierra Nevada foothills is still recovering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One person working on Paradise’s revival is Jenn Goodlin. She grew up there, and six years ago, she was living out of state, as almost her entire hometown burned to the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt so helpless in Colorado. Like, how many Target gift cards can I send, right?” Goodlin said, speaking to NPR’s \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A visit to Paradise later on made it clear to Goodlin that the best way to help Paradise was to move back and build a home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023495\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 160px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-12023495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8-160x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-1-copy-8.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jen Goodlin, executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, poses with a mural depicting a sunset from handprints of local children, at Paradise Community Park in November 2024. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jen Goodlin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Dragged my family along, my four children and my husband and said, ‘how about we leave our great life and move to a burnt-down town and live in a trailer for two and a half years?'” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She volunteered, helping people get food or sheds to store their tools. Then she took a job as executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, which finds money to help with rebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While most people never have to build a custom home in their lives, suddenly a town of thousands \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1209471739/a-california-town-wiped-off-the-map-by-wildfire-is-still-recovering-five-years-o\">needed funding and knowledge of the basic, bureaucratic hurdles of construction\u003c/a>. The foundation would write people checks to pay for surveys, architecture and engineering fees and permit fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Septic was hit heavily, very expensive,” Goodlin said. \u003ca href=\"https://krcrtv.com/news/local/sewer-project-on-hold-for-town-of-paradise\">Without a sewer system\u003c/a>, Paradise relies on septic tanks. “We wanted to ease that burden.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goodlin said the foundation has a library of floor plans pre-approved by the town and county to help residents break ground more quickly. She said almost 200 new homes have relied on those floor plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many residents run into roadblocks with insurance companies that hesitate to cover homes in the so-called “wildland-urban interface” that is prone to fires. To make homes more resilient and more insurable, the foundation gave residents vouchers for gravel to lay down in the 5 feet surrounding their homes.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The nitty gritty of building and hardening homes has translated to growth. The \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2021-2024-with-2020-census-benchmark/\">California Department of Finance\u003c/a>, which estimates populations in the state, said Paradise grew from fewer than 5,000 people in 2020 to nearly 11,000 in 2024. That’s still far from \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2011-2020-with-2010-census-benchmark-new/\">a pre-Camp Fire population\u003c/a> of more than 26,000 in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the ground in Paradise, Goodlin has seen more\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>young families and children in town, noting that the Paradise Unified School District \u003ca href=\"https://krcrtv.com/news/local/cedarwood-elementary-in-magalia-unveils-upgraded-27-million-campus-ahead-of-school-year\">opened a new elementary school\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goodlin’s advice for people in Los Angeles who talk of rebuilding homes is to take it one step at a time. She hopes Paradise’s story can be a survival guide for Altadena and Pacific Palisades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are here. Like, we have gone through it — similar but different,” she said. “How can we help you now? People came to our side as well. But that’s now our job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was edited by Obed Manuel.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Workers Now Begin Massive Cleanup After LA Fires. Can the State Keep Them Safe?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Anabel Garcia’s eyes burned and her breathing was labored and dry as she cleared debris from burned down properties in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2017, the Tubbs Fire had just scythed its way through towns and crops and Garcia, a vineyard worker, was out of a job. So she joined on with a contractor providing post-fire cleanup services. But that proved painful and dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were sick with throat and skin problems,” she said, of herself and the scores of other immigrant workers who took cleanup gigs in the aftermath of the fire. “There were many consequences we had later, in order to keep working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia was cleaning up after what was, at the time, the most destructive fire in California history, which killed 22 people and torched 5,600 structures. The Palisades and Eaton fires that started last week have already caused nearly double that damage and as Los Angeles turns its \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2025/01/la-fires-california-legislature-bills/\">eye toward recovery\u003c/a>, worker advocates and state regulators are concerned about the potential hazards to cleanup workers like Garcia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cleanup is essential: The debris must be cleared and the ash-covered houses cleaned before any reconstruction is possible. Much of that work will fall to a cadre of immigrant laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some are already employed as housekeepers and may be asked by homeowners to clear ash from a damaged house, workers’ advocates said. Others will likely be the gardeners, handymen and other domestic service workers reeling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/la-fires-workers-lost-jobs/\">from lost income during the fires\u003c/a>, available for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As those big areas of the city that have been impacted get opened up and handed back to property owners, those workers are going to be, no question, in massive demand,” said Kevin Riley, director of the Labor and Occupational Safety and Health program at UCLA. “They’re a critical backbone to reconstruction efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire recovery workers can face \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/wildfire/Worker-Health-and-Safety-During-Fire-Cleanup.html\">numerous hazards\u003c/a>, including structurally unsound buildings, toxic gases, exposed electrical wiring, cancer-causing chemicals and ash, soot and dust which can damage the lungs when inhaled, according to the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022990\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022990\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, homeowners Christine Meinders and Sohrab Nafici, return to their fire-ravaged neighborhood in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State environmental agencies usually remove toxic substances that have seeped into the ground, and certified contractors are required to mitigate asbestos and lead risks, Riley said. Those workers tend to be trained for the hazards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’s concerned about anyone hired for a less formal cleanup job, whether directly by a homeowner or by one of a \u003ca href=\"https://publicintegrity.org/topics/environment/toxic-labor/\">growing number of loosely regulated\u003c/a> cleanup-and-recovery contractors that \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/08/the-migrant-workers-who-follow-climate-disasters\">chase climate-driven disasters\u003c/a> across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Wilson, senior safety engineer at Cal/OSHA, told the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board in a public meeting on Thursday that the agency is planning to do outreach about the risks of those jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re also paying attention to the need for getting in front of the next phase of this incident, which is going to be contractors moving into these areas, and what we’ve seen historically, hiring day laborers to do cleanup and salvage work, and often with little to no protection,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Safety training\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning, day laborers and community volunteers mingled at the Pasadena Community Job Center. The day laborers, who typically wait for work requests from homeowners or contractors at Home Depots or street corners, were instead preparing to lead efforts to clean up the debris left by strong winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of men and women shoveled, raked and swept neighborhood streets where winds had topped over trees, branches and debris that could spark or carry embers. By the end of the day, they had filled a convoy of 15 dump trucks with debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which runs the job center, helped organize the volunteers from the community and from throughout the county to clean up throughout the week. The effort highlights the role immigrant workers play helping their communities recover from disasters, said Manuel Vicente, director of the network’s Radio Jornalera program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a way to respond to the rhetoric about immigrants happening now, the rain of lies about immigrants that have been stigmatizing us,” he said. “That we’re a community that if someone falls, we extend a hand to help them up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022991\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022991\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Day laborer Jorge Medina cleans up vegetation debris south of the Altadena Eaton Fire burn area in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In anticipation of its members being picked up for cleanup jobs, the network has deployed an OSHA-certified trainer at the job center to teach workers how to identify hazards in burned homes. It also plans to send staff to local Home Depots to hand out pamphlets and educational materials to day laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The network has done similar training in hurricane-battered regions on the East Coast and in Texas and Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the L.A. County Department of Public Health have been distributing N95 masks to workers centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alice Berliner, director of the department’s office of worker health and safety, pointed to surveys of gardeners, housekeepers and other domestic service workers conducted by advocacy groups after the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Malibu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Based on the fact that they were exposed to toxic debris, handling unsafe materials without proper equipment,” Berliner said, “we’re very likely to see a similar dynamic with this upcoming cleanup.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cleaning up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Sonoma County after the Tubbs Fire, Christy Lubin remembers two kinds of disaster responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one, the state sent specialized contractors to remove toxic substances from charred homes. Most of the workers who came to the Graton Day Labor Center in the county’s wine country were shut out from those jobs, lacking \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/5192.html\">the state-required hazardous material certifications\u003c/a>, said Lubin, the center’s director.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12021150,science_1995438,news_12021941,news_12021661\"]In the other, the town flooded with other reconstruction contractors from around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“(The contractors) were bringing in a lot of immigrant workers, especially a lot of women, who got hired to go in and do especially interior building cleanup, smoke damage cleanup,” Lubin said. “Those contractors were picking up groups of workers, meeting them on a corner, driving them in a van to these workplaces where they were sent into these buildings without the proper training, without the proper personal protective equipment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can be tough, said Riley of UCLA, to enforce safety regulations in those disaster zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a bit of a wild west situation at times,” he said. “Just because of how massive the work is and how varied the worksites and how spread out they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia, the former vineyard employee, said she found her cleanup job through a Facebook ad for a restoration contractor that said it was working for an insurance company. Hundreds of workers who needed income after the fires responded, she said, and the contractors didn’t seem to care about their immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers boarded 15-passenger vans to burned homes, businesses and even public buildings, she said. Sometimes she worked 10-hour days. She recalled being paid somewhere between $13 and $15 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a few weeks, Garcia cleaned a hospital clinic strewn with blood and syringes before then cleaning homes, clearing and bagging up ashes and debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything was covered in ashes,” she said. “Everything you saw was black.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said workers were given gloves and a helmet, but nothing to protect their bodies or cover their shoes. They only received masks the first two days, then had to reuse them, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘What we need is to work’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Experiences \u003ca href=\"https://www.kalw.org/show/crosscurrents/2020-02-26/as-californias-wildfires-get-worse-domestic-workers-fight-for-protection\">like those\u003c/a> drove Garcia — now a house-cleaner and a board member at the day labor center — and other worker advocates to push California lawmakers to better protect workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has passed new regulations requiring employers to protect workers from wildfire smoke or prohibiting them from forcing workers to be in evacuation zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in July, some domestic workers will be newly covered under state workplace safety laws. There’s an exception for those hired privately by homeowners, but Cal/OSHA spokesperson Daniel Lopez told CalMatters in an email that anyone who is hired for cleanup — no matter the employer — is already covered by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/wildfire/Worker-Health-and-Safety-During-Fire-Cleanup.html\">slew of wildfire-specific safety regulations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A state advisory committee on domestic labor in 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/documents/Voluntary-Industry-Guidelines-SB-321.pdf\">recommended against (PDF)\u003c/a> hiring people commonly employed for household or yard work to clean up soot or ash after a wildfire, “as this may require specialized equipment and training.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022992\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Day laborer Oscar Hernandez, right, cleans up vegetation debris south of the Altadena Eaton Fire burn area in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t erase their willingness to do the jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning in Pasadena a handful of day laborers waited for gigs at the corner of Villa and Fair Oaks, three miles south of homes the Eaton Fire had burned one week earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They perked up as cars slowed past the street. Work has been slow all season, they said, even before the fires destroyed many household jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marcelo Esteban said he knew that there might be work coming to clean up or rebuild burnt down communities, though he expected homeowners to turn to day laborers only after they’ve gotten help from insurance companies or the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t think much about the risks that work might carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone needs help, we can use masks,” he said. “Someone is going to do the work anyway. What we need is to work. It doesn’t matter what.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The LA fires have left domestic workers and day laborers jobless. They may soon be hired for wildfire cleanup work, where they can be exposed to ash and other toxins.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Anabel Garcia’s eyes burned and her breathing was labored and dry as she cleared debris from burned down properties in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late 2017, the Tubbs Fire had just scythed its way through towns and crops and Garcia, a vineyard worker, was out of a job. So she joined on with a contractor providing post-fire cleanup services. But that proved painful and dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were sick with throat and skin problems,” she said, of herself and the scores of other immigrant workers who took cleanup gigs in the aftermath of the fire. “There were many consequences we had later, in order to keep working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia was cleaning up after what was, at the time, the most destructive fire in California history, which killed 22 people and torched 5,600 structures. The Palisades and Eaton fires that started last week have already caused nearly double that damage and as Los Angeles turns its \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2025/01/la-fires-california-legislature-bills/\">eye toward recovery\u003c/a>, worker advocates and state regulators are concerned about the potential hazards to cleanup workers like Garcia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cleanup is essential: The debris must be cleared and the ash-covered houses cleaned before any reconstruction is possible. Much of that work will fall to a cadre of immigrant laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some are already employed as housekeepers and may be asked by homeowners to clear ash from a damaged house, workers’ advocates said. Others will likely be the gardeners, handymen and other domestic service workers reeling \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/la-fires-workers-lost-jobs/\">from lost income during the fires\u003c/a>, available for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As those big areas of the city that have been impacted get opened up and handed back to property owners, those workers are going to be, no question, in massive demand,” said Kevin Riley, director of the Labor and Occupational Safety and Health program at UCLA. “They’re a critical backbone to reconstruction efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire recovery workers can face \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/wildfire/Worker-Health-and-Safety-During-Fire-Cleanup.html\">numerous hazards\u003c/a>, including structurally unsound buildings, toxic gases, exposed electrical wiring, cancer-causing chemicals and ash, soot and dust which can damage the lungs when inhaled, according to the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022990\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022990\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011025-Eaton-Fire-Clean-Up-AP-CM-02-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, homeowners Christine Meinders and Sohrab Nafici, return to their fire-ravaged neighborhood in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 10, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State environmental agencies usually remove toxic substances that have seeped into the ground, and certified contractors are required to mitigate asbestos and lead risks, Riley said. Those workers tend to be trained for the hazards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he’s concerned about anyone hired for a less formal cleanup job, whether directly by a homeowner or by one of a \u003ca href=\"https://publicintegrity.org/topics/environment/toxic-labor/\">growing number of loosely regulated\u003c/a> cleanup-and-recovery contractors that \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/08/the-migrant-workers-who-follow-climate-disasters\">chase climate-driven disasters\u003c/a> across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Wilson, senior safety engineer at Cal/OSHA, told the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board in a public meeting on Thursday that the agency is planning to do outreach about the risks of those jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re also paying attention to the need for getting in front of the next phase of this incident, which is going to be contractors moving into these areas, and what we’ve seen historically, hiring day laborers to do cleanup and salvage work, and often with little to no protection,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Safety training\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning, day laborers and community volunteers mingled at the Pasadena Community Job Center. The day laborers, who typically wait for work requests from homeowners or contractors at Home Depots or street corners, were instead preparing to lead efforts to clean up the debris left by strong winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of men and women shoveled, raked and swept neighborhood streets where winds had topped over trees, branches and debris that could spark or carry embers. By the end of the day, they had filled a convoy of 15 dump trucks with debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which runs the job center, helped organize the volunteers from the community and from throughout the county to clean up throughout the week. The effort highlights the role immigrant workers play helping their communities recover from disasters, said Manuel Vicente, director of the network’s Radio Jornalera program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a way to respond to the rhetoric about immigrants happening now, the rain of lies about immigrants that have been stigmatizing us,” he said. “That we’re a community that if someone falls, we extend a hand to help them up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022991\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022991\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_021-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Day laborer Jorge Medina cleans up vegetation debris south of the Altadena Eaton Fire burn area in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In anticipation of its members being picked up for cleanup jobs, the network has deployed an OSHA-certified trainer at the job center to teach workers how to identify hazards in burned homes. It also plans to send staff to local Home Depots to hand out pamphlets and educational materials to day laborers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The network has done similar training in hurricane-battered regions on the East Coast and in Texas and Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the L.A. County Department of Public Health have been distributing N95 masks to workers centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alice Berliner, director of the department’s office of worker health and safety, pointed to surveys of gardeners, housekeepers and other domestic service workers conducted by advocacy groups after the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Malibu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Based on the fact that they were exposed to toxic debris, handling unsafe materials without proper equipment,” Berliner said, “we’re very likely to see a similar dynamic with this upcoming cleanup.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Cleaning up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Sonoma County after the Tubbs Fire, Christy Lubin remembers two kinds of disaster responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one, the state sent specialized contractors to remove toxic substances from charred homes. Most of the workers who came to the Graton Day Labor Center in the county’s wine country were shut out from those jobs, lacking \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/5192.html\">the state-required hazardous material certifications\u003c/a>, said Lubin, the center’s director.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In the other, the town flooded with other reconstruction contractors from around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“(The contractors) were bringing in a lot of immigrant workers, especially a lot of women, who got hired to go in and do especially interior building cleanup, smoke damage cleanup,” Lubin said. “Those contractors were picking up groups of workers, meeting them on a corner, driving them in a van to these workplaces where they were sent into these buildings without the proper training, without the proper personal protective equipment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can be tough, said Riley of UCLA, to enforce safety regulations in those disaster zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a bit of a wild west situation at times,” he said. “Just because of how massive the work is and how varied the worksites and how spread out they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia, the former vineyard employee, said she found her cleanup job through a Facebook ad for a restoration contractor that said it was working for an insurance company. Hundreds of workers who needed income after the fires responded, she said, and the contractors didn’t seem to care about their immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers boarded 15-passenger vans to burned homes, businesses and even public buildings, she said. Sometimes she worked 10-hour days. She recalled being paid somewhere between $13 and $15 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a few weeks, Garcia cleaned a hospital clinic strewn with blood and syringes before then cleaning homes, clearing and bagging up ashes and debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything was covered in ashes,” she said. “Everything you saw was black.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said workers were given gloves and a helmet, but nothing to protect their bodies or cover their shoes. They only received masks the first two days, then had to reuse them, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘What we need is to work’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Experiences \u003ca href=\"https://www.kalw.org/show/crosscurrents/2020-02-26/as-californias-wildfires-get-worse-domestic-workers-fight-for-protection\">like those\u003c/a> drove Garcia — now a house-cleaner and a board member at the day labor center — and other worker advocates to push California lawmakers to better protect workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has passed new regulations requiring employers to protect workers from wildfire smoke or prohibiting them from forcing workers to be in evacuation zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in July, some domestic workers will be newly covered under state workplace safety laws. There’s an exception for those hired privately by homeowners, but Cal/OSHA spokesperson Daniel Lopez told CalMatters in an email that anyone who is hired for cleanup — no matter the employer — is already covered by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/wildfire/Worker-Health-and-Safety-During-Fire-Cleanup.html\">slew of wildfire-specific safety regulations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A state advisory committee on domestic labor in 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/documents/Voluntary-Industry-Guidelines-SB-321.pdf\">recommended against (PDF)\u003c/a> hiring people commonly employed for household or yard work to clean up soot or ash after a wildfire, “as this may require specialized equipment and training.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022992\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1046\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011525_EatonFireDayLaborersPasadenaLosAngeles_JAJ_CM_022-copy-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Day laborer Oscar Hernandez, right, cleans up vegetation debris south of the Altadena Eaton Fire burn area in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t erase their willingness to do the jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning in Pasadena a handful of day laborers waited for gigs at the corner of Villa and Fair Oaks, three miles south of homes the Eaton Fire had burned one week earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They perked up as cars slowed past the street. Work has been slow all season, they said, even before the fires destroyed many household jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marcelo Esteban said he knew that there might be work coming to clean up or rebuild burnt down communities, though he expected homeowners to turn to day laborers only after they’ve gotten help from insurance companies or the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t think much about the risks that work might carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone needs help, we can use masks,” he said. “Someone is going to do the work anyway. What we need is to work. It doesn’t matter what.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why Is California Years Behind in Implementing a Law to Make Homes More Fire Resistant?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Reeling from destructive wildfires, including \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-business-paradise-wildfires-720e09a42e8942ed8bac91b4bcf85b3c\">the deadliest\u003c/a> in California history, state lawmakers in 2020 passed new requirements for clearing combustible materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet of homes in risky areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules were set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. But as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-southern-california-212389bfba69f39baaf72579f1644ddd\">Los Angeles grapples with blazes\u003c/a> that have destroyed thousands of homes in what \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-natural-disasters-losses-insurance-recovery-d2f24e44d75503118643151eaee947fb\">could be the costliest\u003c/a> natural disaster in U.S. history, the regulations still haven’t been written. The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has no firm timeline for completing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s frustrating at every level of government,” said Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern, who was part of a group of lawmakers who authored the legislation. “I feel like a failure on it, being quite frank.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the neighborhoods ravaged by the Palisades Fire are in areas that must follow state requirements to keep the immediate surroundings of their homes free of combustible materials and would be subject to the new rules because they are deemed at highest fire risk by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire, driven by \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">hurricane-force winds\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-embers-spread-9d2eff9cac9d355f906ea5f63ace1957\">spread embers by air\u003c/a>, destroyed at least 5,000 structures across areas including Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Topanga Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the latest proposal, existing homes would have three years to comply with the regulations, so it’s not clear how many homes would have been saved. But clearing the immediate area around homes likely would have made some difference, several experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel really strongly that it would” have made a difference in some cases based on previous research, said Steve Hawks, a former state firefighter who now works for an insurance industry research group that supported the law. “There’s no guarantees, of course, particularly when you have a high intensity wildfire like these.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So-called defensible space laws require homeowners in fire-prone places to keep the area immediately around their homes free of landscaping and other materials that could catch fire. California already enforces some of the most stringent defensible space laws in the West. The state began requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear flammable materials within 30 feet of their houses in the 1960s and then expanded the rules to include areas within 100 feet of structures in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest measure creates a new “ember-resistant” zone, dubbed “zone zero,” that bars things like brush, wooden fencing, furniture, sheds and mulch within 5 feet of homes. The idea is to clear all materials that could catch fire from flying embers carried by winds and spread to the structure. State officials and researchers said embers are responsible for 90% of structures destroyed by wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The zone-zero law passed with bipartisan support after California experienced record-breaking fires in 2017 and 2018, including a fire that wiped out the town of Paradise, destroying more than 17,000 structures and killing 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homes have a much better chance of surviving a wildfire when homeowners follow defensible space requirements and various home-hardening recommendations like using vent covers to keep out flying embers, said Yana Valachovic, a fire scientist with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. She is helping CalFire survey the LA fires’ destruction this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hesitant to put a number factor on exactly how much greater survival rate we’ll get,” she said. “But, you know, we have to do everything to push the equation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"737\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-800x576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-1020x734.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-160x115.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A firefighter sprays water on a house to protect it from the Eaton Fire in the Altadena neighborhood of Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Nick Ut/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection said it’s still in “the pre-rulemaking phase” while it finds money to alleviate the potential costs under the new requirements. State officials said in a November meeting that the draft language likely won’t be considered by the board until late this year, though CalFire has already encouraged homeowners to take up the practice on \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/defensible-space/\">its website\u003c/a>. The agency recommended the adoption of zone zero requirements as part of a report on fire strategies requested by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers last year also passed legislation to extend the deadline to comply — from one year to three years — for existing homes once the regulations are adopted. Some cities and homeowners are already taking on the practice voluntarily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many facets to consider as part of this complex process,” Edith Hannigan, executive officer of the board, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “This topic remains a priority for the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and staff aims to have a draft proposal to present to the Board as soon as is feasible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, state officials told The Associated Press that Newsom has planned to direct $25 million to help homeowners create zone zero areas and follow other defensible space requirements in \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-billions-2025-budget-gov-newsom-trump-419a6f75bfbfed26a76fe21870ac37e6\">his budget proposal\u003c/a> unveiled last week. The money will come from \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-budget-deficit-bonds-climate-schools-348b9d64e0813355620bf26056cf0bba\">a $10 billion bond\u003c/a> approved by voters in 2024 to pay for climate change initiatives.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12021911,news_11787162,news_11786957,news_11711140\"]Some of the most effective strategies include clearing dead vegetation and debris off a structure’s roof and out of gutters and replacing bark with pea gravel, said Kimiko Barrett, who authored \u003ca href=\"https://headwaterseconomics.org/natural-hazards/retrofitting-home-wildfire-resistance/\">a 2024 study\u003c/a> looking at the costs for retrofitting existing structures in California. Replacing wooden fencing could cost more, but it also helps better protect a home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost of not doing anything could be far, far greater,” Barrett said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zone zero discussions have been underway for the past decade, and the idea isn’t always popular. Stern, the state senator who also lost his home in another Los Angeles fire in 2018, said he struggles to convince his family to follow the practice. His parents dismissed his advice like clearing out the rosemary bush next to their home as minor things, Stern said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I don’t know is whether people are going to see that as a headache,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman, a Democrat who led the effort to pass the zone-zero law in 2020 as a state Assembly member, said the implementation “shouldn’t have taken years and years.” She then deferred questions to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope that the state acts with the urgency that the issue and these guidelines deserve,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the latest draft, the rules would immediately apply to new homes and allow existing buildings three years to comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Reeling from destructive wildfires, including \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-business-paradise-wildfires-720e09a42e8942ed8bac91b4bcf85b3c\">the deadliest\u003c/a> in California history, state lawmakers in 2020 passed new requirements for clearing combustible materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet of homes in risky areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules were set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. But as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wildfires-southern-california-212389bfba69f39baaf72579f1644ddd\">Los Angeles grapples with blazes\u003c/a> that have destroyed thousands of homes in what \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-natural-disasters-losses-insurance-recovery-d2f24e44d75503118643151eaee947fb\">could be the costliest\u003c/a> natural disaster in U.S. history, the regulations still haven’t been written. The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has no firm timeline for completing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s frustrating at every level of government,” said Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern, who was part of a group of lawmakers who authored the legislation. “I feel like a failure on it, being quite frank.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the neighborhoods ravaged by the Palisades Fire are in areas that must follow state requirements to keep the immediate surroundings of their homes free of combustible materials and would be subject to the new rules because they are deemed at highest fire risk by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire, driven by \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">hurricane-force winds\u003c/a> that \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-embers-spread-9d2eff9cac9d355f906ea5f63ace1957\">spread embers by air\u003c/a>, destroyed at least 5,000 structures across areas including Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Topanga Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the latest proposal, existing homes would have three years to comply with the regulations, so it’s not clear how many homes would have been saved. But clearing the immediate area around homes likely would have made some difference, several experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel really strongly that it would” have made a difference in some cases based on previous research, said Steve Hawks, a former state firefighter who now works for an insurance industry research group that supported the law. “There’s no guarantees, of course, particularly when you have a high intensity wildfire like these.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So-called defensible space laws require homeowners in fire-prone places to keep the area immediately around their homes free of landscaping and other materials that could catch fire. California already enforces some of the most stringent defensible space laws in the West. The state began requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear flammable materials within 30 feet of their houses in the 1960s and then expanded the rules to include areas within 100 feet of structures in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest measure creates a new “ember-resistant” zone, dubbed “zone zero,” that bars things like brush, wooden fencing, furniture, sheds and mulch within 5 feet of homes. The idea is to clear all materials that could catch fire from flying embers carried by winds and spread to the structure. State officials and researchers said embers are responsible for 90% of structures destroyed by wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The zone-zero law passed with bipartisan support after California experienced record-breaking fires in 2017 and 2018, including a fire that wiped out the town of Paradise, destroying more than 17,000 structures and killing 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homes have a much better chance of surviving a wildfire when homeowners follow defensible space requirements and various home-hardening recommendations like using vent covers to keep out flying embers, said Yana Valachovic, a fire scientist with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. She is helping CalFire survey the LA fires’ destruction this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m hesitant to put a number factor on exactly how much greater survival rate we’ll get,” she said. “But, you know, we have to do everything to push the equation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022934\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022934\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"737\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-800x576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-1020x734.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2192423304-160x115.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A firefighter sprays water on a house to protect it from the Eaton Fire in the Altadena neighborhood of Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Nick Ut/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection said it’s still in “the pre-rulemaking phase” while it finds money to alleviate the potential costs under the new requirements. State officials said in a November meeting that the draft language likely won’t be considered by the board until late this year, though CalFire has already encouraged homeowners to take up the practice on \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/defensible-space/\">its website\u003c/a>. The agency recommended the adoption of zone zero requirements as part of a report on fire strategies requested by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers last year also passed legislation to extend the deadline to comply — from one year to three years — for existing homes once the regulations are adopted. Some cities and homeowners are already taking on the practice voluntarily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many facets to consider as part of this complex process,” Edith Hannigan, executive officer of the board, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “This topic remains a priority for the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and staff aims to have a draft proposal to present to the Board as soon as is feasible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, state officials told The Associated Press that Newsom has planned to direct $25 million to help homeowners create zone zero areas and follow other defensible space requirements in \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-billions-2025-budget-gov-newsom-trump-419a6f75bfbfed26a76fe21870ac37e6\">his budget proposal\u003c/a> unveiled last week. The money will come from \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-budget-deficit-bonds-climate-schools-348b9d64e0813355620bf26056cf0bba\">a $10 billion bond\u003c/a> approved by voters in 2024 to pay for climate change initiatives.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some of the most effective strategies include clearing dead vegetation and debris off a structure’s roof and out of gutters and replacing bark with pea gravel, said Kimiko Barrett, who authored \u003ca href=\"https://headwaterseconomics.org/natural-hazards/retrofitting-home-wildfire-resistance/\">a 2024 study\u003c/a> looking at the costs for retrofitting existing structures in California. Replacing wooden fencing could cost more, but it also helps better protect a home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost of not doing anything could be far, far greater,” Barrett said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zone zero discussions have been underway for the past decade, and the idea isn’t always popular. Stern, the state senator who also lost his home in another Los Angeles fire in 2018, said he struggles to convince his family to follow the practice. His parents dismissed his advice like clearing out the rosemary bush next to their home as minor things, Stern said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I don’t know is whether people are going to see that as a headache,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman, a Democrat who led the effort to pass the zone-zero law in 2020 as a state Assembly member, said the implementation “shouldn’t have taken years and years.” She then deferred questions to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope that the state acts with the urgency that the issue and these guidelines deserve,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the latest draft, the rules would immediately apply to new homes and allow existing buildings three years to comply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Nearly 90 Bay Area Fire Departments Have Helped Battle the LA Fires",
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"content": "\u003cp>Firefighters and other personnel from nearly 90 fire departments spanning all nine Bay Area counties are helping to battle the cascade of wildfires that have ravaged large swaths of Los Angeles over the last nearly two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, which oversees the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.caloes.ca.gov/office-of-the-director/operations/response-operations/fire-rescue/fire-operations/\">fire and rescue mutual aid system\u003c/a>, aimed at ensuring that emergency units are at the ready whenever the \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/mqt/redflagtips\">National Weather Service issues a Red Flag Warning\u003c/a> for extreme fire danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those participating include the San Francisco Fire Department, which said it had sent 29 personnel as of earlier this week. A group of 10 firefighters from Oakland, Hayward, and Fremont, all trained in urban search and rescue, also headed to the L.A. area on Monday with the sole intent of helping to search burned areas for bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13wRw8UlfYeBWahaf3OFH4yoN_dCJrxMwIT0Jmjg1cnY/edit?usp=sharing\">The extensive list of participating Bay Area departments\u003c/a>, big and small, covers every corner of the region, from Gilroy, San Bruno, Watsonville, San Mateo and Hollister to San Ramon, Fremont, Kelseyville, Vallejo and Geyersville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since first breaking out on Jan. 7 and rapidly spreading throughout the region, the blazes have killed at least 25 people and destroyed upwards of 12,000 structures, scorching a vast expanse of more than 40,000 acres, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/OaklandFireCA/status/1877442748443168913\">according to Cal Fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Hunt, public information officer for the Oakland Fire Department, said the first OFD team hit the road for Los Angeles around 11 p.m. on Jan. 7. As of Monday, the department had sent down 19 firefighters, including three engine companies, one water tender and three more senior department officials to help organize command efforts on the ground, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were already in touch with Cal OES when the winds were first forecasted,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many significantly smaller Bay Area fire departments have also been assisting with the effort, including the single-station department in Albany, which has a total of just 21 firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Albany Fire Chief Jim Boito said three of his firefighters headed to L.A. last week in a brush truck — a rig designed to fight wildfires in rough terrain — joining a multi-unit task force battling the Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their first charge is always to save lives and then property. All the resources went into saving lives. The crews down there are working great,” Boito said, adding that crews there are working 24-hour shifts with 24 hours off for two-week deployments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boito started working for the Albany Fire Department in 1996, with the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire still fresh in the Bay Area’s memory. The coordinated response to that fire, the largest urban wildfire at the time, was complicated by the fact that many different responding agencies couldn’t communicate with one another because their radios didn’t broadcast on shared frequencies, he said. Firefighting efforts were further hampered because some of the nozzles on the hoses used by some of the departments that came to help fight the blaze weren’t compatible with fire hydrants in Oakland and Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the years that followed, federal, state and local leaders examined the shortcomings of the collective response, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/disaster/919\">coming up with detailed plans\u003c/a> to prevent that level of miscommunication from never happening again. The effort led to a revamping of the state’s mutual aid system that had been in place since 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problems we experienced in the ’91 fire have all been alleviated,” Boito said. “We learned some lessons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lessons learned from the Oakland Hills fire was the need, during extreme fire emergencies, to summon not only other nearby departments, but also those farther away, and to have equipment ready and waiting for them.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12020393,news_12021147,news_12022540\"]Hunt, from OFD, said Cal OES now has rigs stationed across the state that are put into position to fight fires anytime there’s a Red Flag Warning, such as in October, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010151/oakland-fire-spreads-to-nearby-homes-amid-dry-windy-conditions\">Keller Fire spread in the Oakland Hills\u003c/a> but was quickly contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland’s diverse landscape has also helped its firefighters take on the mountainous terrain of Los Angeles County, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oakland firefighters are uniquely prepared to battle fires on complex terrains,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hunt said Oakland and other jurisdictions that could be prone to a massively destructive urban wildfire continually train together in preparation to attack large-scale fires as a coordinated unit. That, along with mitigation strategies — like \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/29/oaklands-fire-fighting-goats-are-finishing-up-their-seasonal-work/\">brush-eating goats\u003c/a>, controlled burns and public education — has helped the region, so far steer clear of additional blazes on the scale of the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all helps that they can all talk to each other and use the same equipment,” Hunt said. “It’s not an accident that we haven’t had a major fire here in 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Firefighters and other personnel from nearly 90 fire departments spanning all nine Bay Area counties are helping to battle the cascade of wildfires that have ravaged large swaths of Los Angeles over the last nearly two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, which oversees the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.caloes.ca.gov/office-of-the-director/operations/response-operations/fire-rescue/fire-operations/\">fire and rescue mutual aid system\u003c/a>, aimed at ensuring that emergency units are at the ready whenever the \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/mqt/redflagtips\">National Weather Service issues a Red Flag Warning\u003c/a> for extreme fire danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those participating include the San Francisco Fire Department, which said it had sent 29 personnel as of earlier this week. A group of 10 firefighters from Oakland, Hayward, and Fremont, all trained in urban search and rescue, also headed to the L.A. area on Monday with the sole intent of helping to search burned areas for bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13wRw8UlfYeBWahaf3OFH4yoN_dCJrxMwIT0Jmjg1cnY/edit?usp=sharing\">The extensive list of participating Bay Area departments\u003c/a>, big and small, covers every corner of the region, from Gilroy, San Bruno, Watsonville, San Mateo and Hollister to San Ramon, Fremont, Kelseyville, Vallejo and Geyersville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since first breaking out on Jan. 7 and rapidly spreading throughout the region, the blazes have killed at least 25 people and destroyed upwards of 12,000 structures, scorching a vast expanse of more than 40,000 acres, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/OaklandFireCA/status/1877442748443168913\">according to Cal Fire\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Hunt, public information officer for the Oakland Fire Department, said the first OFD team hit the road for Los Angeles around 11 p.m. on Jan. 7. As of Monday, the department had sent down 19 firefighters, including three engine companies, one water tender and three more senior department officials to help organize command efforts on the ground, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were already in touch with Cal OES when the winds were first forecasted,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many significantly smaller Bay Area fire departments have also been assisting with the effort, including the single-station department in Albany, which has a total of just 21 firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Albany Fire Chief Jim Boito said three of his firefighters headed to L.A. last week in a brush truck — a rig designed to fight wildfires in rough terrain — joining a multi-unit task force battling the Eaton Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their first charge is always to save lives and then property. All the resources went into saving lives. The crews down there are working great,” Boito said, adding that crews there are working 24-hour shifts with 24 hours off for two-week deployments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Boito started working for the Albany Fire Department in 1996, with the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire still fresh in the Bay Area’s memory. The coordinated response to that fire, the largest urban wildfire at the time, was complicated by the fact that many different responding agencies couldn’t communicate with one another because their radios didn’t broadcast on shared frequencies, he said. Firefighting efforts were further hampered because some of the nozzles on the hoses used by some of the departments that came to help fight the blaze weren’t compatible with fire hydrants in Oakland and Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the years that followed, federal, state and local leaders examined the shortcomings of the collective response, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/disaster/919\">coming up with detailed plans\u003c/a> to prevent that level of miscommunication from never happening again. The effort led to a revamping of the state’s mutual aid system that had been in place since 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problems we experienced in the ’91 fire have all been alleviated,” Boito said. “We learned some lessons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lessons learned from the Oakland Hills fire was the need, during extreme fire emergencies, to summon not only other nearby departments, but also those farther away, and to have equipment ready and waiting for them.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Hunt, from OFD, said Cal OES now has rigs stationed across the state that are put into position to fight fires anytime there’s a Red Flag Warning, such as in October, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010151/oakland-fire-spreads-to-nearby-homes-amid-dry-windy-conditions\">Keller Fire spread in the Oakland Hills\u003c/a> but was quickly contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland’s diverse landscape has also helped its firefighters take on the mountainous terrain of Los Angeles County, Hunt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oakland firefighters are uniquely prepared to battle fires on complex terrains,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hunt said Oakland and other jurisdictions that could be prone to a massively destructive urban wildfire continually train together in preparation to attack large-scale fires as a coordinated unit. That, along with mitigation strategies — like \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/29/oaklands-fire-fighting-goats-are-finishing-up-their-seasonal-work/\">brush-eating goats\u003c/a>, controlled burns and public education — has helped the region, so far steer clear of additional blazes on the scale of the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It all helps that they can all talk to each other and use the same equipment,” Hunt said. “It’s not an accident that we haven’t had a major fire here in 30 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In 1955, the Ventu Park wildfire tore through the canyons above Malibu, burning nearly 14,000 acres and eight homes. The same area saw two large fires burn hillsides and homes over the next three years. There were two in the 1970s, one in the ’80s and three in the ’90s. This century, those hills saw the Woolsey fire, one of the most destructive burns in California history. The Franklin fire, which scorched the hills just last month, has now been overshadowed by the firestorm that followed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Palisades Fire still ripping through that same fire corridor last weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to rebuild — and quickly. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/EO-N-4-25-Rebuilding-Final-signed.pdf\">executive order (PDF)\u003c/a> suspending environmental laws that might delay reconstruction and ordered the state’s housing agency to identify building codes that could stand in the way of recovery. His administration, he told NBC News, was in the midst of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/gov-newsom-says-he-s-organizing-a-marshall-plan-to-reimagine-l-a-2-0-after-wildfires-229081157656\">putting together a “Marshall Plan”\u003c/a> for post-fire reconstruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impulse to restore all that the fires have stripped away may be a basic human one, and it’s certainly good politics for Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to many ecologists, economists and other experts on California wildfire risk, the vow to rebuild is part of a familiar California cycle as predictable as the Santa Anas: We keep putting homes in the path of the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest thing to note about these fires in LA is that none of this is surprising,” said Erica Fischer, an Oregon State University professor who studies wildfire impacts on buildings and public infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1990 and 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/data/wui-change/\">nearly 45% of the homes built in California\u003c/a> has broken ground in what researchers and firefighters call the \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/maps-data/wildland-urban-interface/\">wildland-urban interface\u003c/a>: the hillsides, ravines and canyons where the furthest frontier of residential development meets and merges with the state’s forests, scrublands and grasses. That’s despite the fact that this area makes up less than 7% of all the land in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a particularly risky place to reside. Of all the structures destroyed by wildfire between 1985 and 2013, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2019/nrs_2019_kramer_001.pdf\">more than 80% (PDF)\u003c/a> were in that fire-prone zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter the other precautions a homeowner or local government might take, “you’re still taking a gamble when you place a new development out in an extraordinarily fire-prone environment,” said Alexandra Syphard, an ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute who studies how land-use decisions affect wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Simply by the law of numbers, the more people you have in an area like that, the higher your likelihood that one of those people will start a fire and the higher the likelihood that that fire is going to reach a house,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fireplace remains standing from a home that was burned down by the Eaton Fire in the Altadena and Pasadena area on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jules Hotz for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Once the smoke clears, rebuilding in the same place, often in the same way, is the historic norm. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2021/nrs_2021_kramer_001.pdf\">study of 28 catastrophic blazes\u003c/a> across California between 1970 and 2009 found that nearly 60% of all the destroyed buildings were replaced within six years. The study also found “no consistent trend,” suggesting that the homes or communities were rebuilt in a way more likely to resist future fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some argue that California doesn’t have the luxury not to build (and rebuild) in fire country. Though the state has a chronic and worsening wildfire crisis, something that rears into public consciousness a few weeks out of every year, it also has a chronic housing crisis caused by a severe shortage of homes. For many Californians and lawmakers, that’s a 365-day concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You really hate to take areas off the table for building homes,” said Judson Boomhower, a UC San Diego environmental economist. “We know that we don’t build enough homes. At the same time, you want to make sure that you’re building those homes in a way that’s responsible and safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the urban fringes, the trade-off between housing and fire risk can be a profoundly difficult one to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miriam Greenberg, an urban sociologist at UC Santa Cruz who studies housing and population growth in California’s wildland-urban interface, said she’s watched the \u003ca href=\"https://santacruzlocal.org/2024/12/05/graham-hill-housing-proposal-challenges/\">debate play out in her own backyard\u003c/a>. “You see at the city council meetings, young people going to these meetings and saying, ‘you know what, I would rather that it weren’t so dangerous. But housing is housing.’ And we need housing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenberg has argued that academics and policymakers need to see residential expansion into the state’s most fire-prone areas as yet another reflection of California’s affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking to the (wildland-urban interface) as one of the only places that has capacity for housing,” she said. Though the wildland-urban interface includes toney enclaves of wealth like Pacific Palisades, it also features some of the more affordable real estate left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last few years a handful of state lawmakers have proposed sharp limits on whether and how homes can be built in high risk areas. None have become law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fire-hardened homes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2020, then-state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB182\">introduced a bill\u003c/a> that would have required local governments to impose building code, brush management and road design standards on new homes and subdivisions built in areas deemed by \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones/fire-hazard-severity-zones-maps-2022\">CalFire to be at high risk\u003c/a>. The bill passed both the Assembly and Senate only to be vetoed by Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire resilience must become a more consistent part of land use and development decisions,” the governor wrote at the time. “However, it must be done while meeting our housing needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years later, Sen. Henry Stern, a Democrat from Calabasas whose district includes Malibu, authored a bill that would have \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB55\">imposed severe restrictions\u003c/a> on construction in fire country in exchange for allowing higher, denser development in low-risk areas. Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, introduced a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab68\">bill in 2023\u003c/a> with a similar trade-off: Fewer restrictions on dense urban development coupled with fresh limits on growth in the wildland-urban interface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both bills died without a vote. Both faced stiff opposition from the state building industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, a trade group representing the state’s home builders, said blocking development in these areas is not only counterproductive from an affordability perspective, it’s unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New homes built to current California code “are completely different from the homes in Altadena that were built in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” he said. “We know that we can build master planned communities with hardened homes and hardened neighborhoods that don’t burn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buildings can in fact be fire-hardened, if not entirely fire-proofed. That’s often the reason that every California inferno has its share of \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ChasenGreg/status/1877478755091767732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1877478755091767732%7Ctwgr%5Eb3bcffafc969834d3532b4f8c38c66cb5579b7ad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fmjs538%2Fpalisades-house-survives-fire\">miracle houses\u003c/a>: the rare single structure seemingly untouched by flame and surrounded by the ashes and smoldering foundations of neighboring homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2008, any new homes built in a high-risk zone are saddled with a wide array of state-set construction requirements that specify the shape and composition of a building’s roof to the siding material that can be used to the vent covers needed to keep wind-surfing embers from wafting into a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No other state has as many wildfire requirements in place or direction on what communities have to include in their general plans,” said Molly Mowery, executive director of the Community Wildfire Planning Center, a nonprofit that works with jurisdiction across the West to plan for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke from the Eaton Fire fills the sky in La Cañada Flintridge on Jan. 8, 2025. Hills and canyons are critically dry. \u003ccite>(Jules Hotz for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County is considering a new Community Wildfire Protection ordinance that would codify and enhance some of these same statewide requirements. It would apply in many of the areas that are currently burning or under evacuation order. But the rules would only apply to future development, not the homes already there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That underscores a statewide problem: “We have all these homes that were built in places with pretty high fire risk during a period in which we weren’t thinking as much about the risk and during which the risk may actually have been less than it is now because we know scientifically that the climate is making this worse,” said Boomhower from UC San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire-hardening entire communities at once is prohibitively expensive for most localities, even if it’s the only way to effectively protect a neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The mitigation for wildfires is very similar to how we think about mitigation for infectious disease,” said Fischer from Oregon State University. “If one person gets vaccinated out of the whole town, it’s not really going to make much of a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lawsuits and insurance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While lawmakers have been loath to out-and-out limit development in the most flammable corners of the state, the courts have occasionally stepped in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental preservationists, anti-development activists and even the state’s attorney general have turned to the California Environmental Quality Act to block construction projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The act requires governments to study and publicly report the environmental consequences of a development before approving it. In October, a \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2024/a165677.html\">California appellate court\u003c/a> held that wildfire risk is one of those consequences that may deserve special consideration.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12021019,news_12017886,news_12022439\"]Phillip Babich, a real estate attorney, said he expects to see community groups opposed to nature-adjacent developments demanding “more disclosure, more effort in dealing with wildfire risks” as a result of the ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s executive order has foreclosed that option in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a final check on whether homes are constructed in fire-prone areas: Insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, private insurers have been in a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/state-farm-california-insurance/\">slow-motion withdrawal\u003c/a> from California, citing, in part, the state’s increasingly severe wildfire threat and state regulations that prevent them from charging premiums high enough to profitably cover it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/01/la-fires-california-insurance/\">raft of state regulatory changes\u003c/a> is aimed at enticing insurers back. That may mean that homeowners who have been shuttered from the market will now have the \u003cem>option\u003c/em> to buy insurance — but at a price they can’t afford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That, ultimately, is how insurance markets are supposed to work, said Victoria Xie, a Santa Clara University economist. When insurance companies refuse to cover an area or will only do so at sky-high rates, that’s a strobing, red light that the risk of residing in such a location is very real and very high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe households need financial incentives or some sort of help that allows them to make that move,” she said. Because the best long-term outcome is “obviously for us all to instead of frequently fighting these fires and having unaffordable rates to just stay out of these areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would be a painful transition. But it isn’t likely to happen just yet: Last week, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-insurance-commissioner-moratorium-southern-california-homeowners/\">banned insurance companies\u003c/a> from canceling policies or dropping customers in any of the zip codes that have been burned by the Los Angeles fire for the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Levi Sumagaysay contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The L.A. fires expose California’s difficult road to navigate between disaster risk and solving the state’s housing crisis.",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/ben-christopher/\">Ben Christopher\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In 1955, the Ventu Park wildfire tore through the canyons above Malibu, burning nearly 14,000 acres and eight homes. The same area saw two large fires burn hillsides and homes over the next three years. There were two in the 1970s, one in the ’80s and three in the ’90s. This century, those hills saw the Woolsey fire, one of the most destructive burns in California history. The Franklin fire, which scorched the hills just last month, has now been overshadowed by the firestorm that followed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Palisades Fire still ripping through that same fire corridor last weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to rebuild — and quickly. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/EO-N-4-25-Rebuilding-Final-signed.pdf\">executive order (PDF)\u003c/a> suspending environmental laws that might delay reconstruction and ordered the state’s housing agency to identify building codes that could stand in the way of recovery. His administration, he told NBC News, was in the midst of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/gov-newsom-says-he-s-organizing-a-marshall-plan-to-reimagine-l-a-2-0-after-wildfires-229081157656\">putting together a “Marshall Plan”\u003c/a> for post-fire reconstruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impulse to restore all that the fires have stripped away may be a basic human one, and it’s certainly good politics for Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to many ecologists, economists and other experts on California wildfire risk, the vow to rebuild is part of a familiar California cycle as predictable as the Santa Anas: We keep putting homes in the path of the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest thing to note about these fires in LA is that none of this is surprising,” said Erica Fischer, an Oregon State University professor who studies wildfire impacts on buildings and public infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 1990 and 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/data/wui-change/\">nearly 45% of the homes built in California\u003c/a> has broken ground in what researchers and firefighters call the \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/maps-data/wildland-urban-interface/\">wildland-urban interface\u003c/a>: the hillsides, ravines and canyons where the furthest frontier of residential development meets and merges with the state’s forests, scrublands and grasses. That’s despite the fact that this area makes up less than 7% of all the land in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a particularly risky place to reside. Of all the structures destroyed by wildfire between 1985 and 2013, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2019/nrs_2019_kramer_001.pdf\">more than 80% (PDF)\u003c/a> were in that fire-prone zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter the other precautions a homeowner or local government might take, “you’re still taking a gamble when you place a new development out in an extraordinarily fire-prone environment,” said Alexandra Syphard, an ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute who studies how land-use decisions affect wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Simply by the law of numbers, the more people you have in an area like that, the higher your likelihood that one of those people will start a fire and the higher the likelihood that that fire is going to reach a house,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_28-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fireplace remains standing from a home that was burned down by the Eaton Fire in the Altadena and Pasadena area on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jules Hotz for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Once the smoke clears, rebuilding in the same place, often in the same way, is the historic norm. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2021/nrs_2021_kramer_001.pdf\">study of 28 catastrophic blazes\u003c/a> across California between 1970 and 2009 found that nearly 60% of all the destroyed buildings were replaced within six years. The study also found “no consistent trend,” suggesting that the homes or communities were rebuilt in a way more likely to resist future fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some argue that California doesn’t have the luxury not to build (and rebuild) in fire country. Though the state has a chronic and worsening wildfire crisis, something that rears into public consciousness a few weeks out of every year, it also has a chronic housing crisis caused by a severe shortage of homes. For many Californians and lawmakers, that’s a 365-day concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You really hate to take areas off the table for building homes,” said Judson Boomhower, a UC San Diego environmental economist. “We know that we don’t build enough homes. At the same time, you want to make sure that you’re building those homes in a way that’s responsible and safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the urban fringes, the trade-off between housing and fire risk can be a profoundly difficult one to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miriam Greenberg, an urban sociologist at UC Santa Cruz who studies housing and population growth in California’s wildland-urban interface, said she’s watched the \u003ca href=\"https://santacruzlocal.org/2024/12/05/graham-hill-housing-proposal-challenges/\">debate play out in her own backyard\u003c/a>. “You see at the city council meetings, young people going to these meetings and saying, ‘you know what, I would rather that it weren’t so dangerous. But housing is housing.’ And we need housing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenberg has argued that academics and policymakers need to see residential expansion into the state’s most fire-prone areas as yet another reflection of California’s affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking to the (wildland-urban interface) as one of the only places that has capacity for housing,” she said. Though the wildland-urban interface includes toney enclaves of wealth like Pacific Palisades, it also features some of the more affordable real estate left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last few years a handful of state lawmakers have proposed sharp limits on whether and how homes can be built in high risk areas. None have become law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fire-hardened homes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2020, then-state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB182\">introduced a bill\u003c/a> that would have required local governments to impose building code, brush management and road design standards on new homes and subdivisions built in areas deemed by \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones/fire-hazard-severity-zones-maps-2022\">CalFire to be at high risk\u003c/a>. The bill passed both the Assembly and Senate only to be vetoed by Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire resilience must become a more consistent part of land use and development decisions,” the governor wrote at the time. “However, it must be done while meeting our housing needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years later, Sen. Henry Stern, a Democrat from Calabasas whose district includes Malibu, authored a bill that would have \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB55\">imposed severe restrictions\u003c/a> on construction in fire country in exchange for allowing higher, denser development in low-risk areas. Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, introduced a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab68\">bill in 2023\u003c/a> with a similar trade-off: Fewer restrictions on dense urban development coupled with fresh limits on growth in the wildland-urban interface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both bills died without a vote. Both faced stiff opposition from the state building industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, a trade group representing the state’s home builders, said blocking development in these areas is not only counterproductive from an affordability perspective, it’s unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New homes built to current California code “are completely different from the homes in Altadena that were built in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” he said. “We know that we can build master planned communities with hardened homes and hardened neighborhoods that don’t burn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buildings can in fact be fire-hardened, if not entirely fire-proofed. That’s often the reason that every California inferno has its share of \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ChasenGreg/status/1877478755091767732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1877478755091767732%7Ctwgr%5Eb3bcffafc969834d3532b4f8c38c66cb5579b7ad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fmjs538%2Fpalisades-house-survives-fire\">miracle houses\u003c/a>: the rare single structure seemingly untouched by flame and surrounded by the ashes and smoldering foundations of neighboring homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2008, any new homes built in a high-risk zone are saddled with a wide array of state-set construction requirements that specify the shape and composition of a building’s roof to the siding material that can be used to the vent covers needed to keep wind-surfing embers from wafting into a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No other state has as many wildfire requirements in place or direction on what communities have to include in their general plans,” said Molly Mowery, executive director of the Community Wildfire Planning Center, a nonprofit that works with jurisdiction across the West to plan for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010824_Eaton-Fire_JH_CM_18-copy-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke from the Eaton Fire fills the sky in La Cañada Flintridge on Jan. 8, 2025. Hills and canyons are critically dry. \u003ccite>(Jules Hotz for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County is considering a new Community Wildfire Protection ordinance that would codify and enhance some of these same statewide requirements. It would apply in many of the areas that are currently burning or under evacuation order. But the rules would only apply to future development, not the homes already there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That underscores a statewide problem: “We have all these homes that were built in places with pretty high fire risk during a period in which we weren’t thinking as much about the risk and during which the risk may actually have been less than it is now because we know scientifically that the climate is making this worse,” said Boomhower from UC San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire-hardening entire communities at once is prohibitively expensive for most localities, even if it’s the only way to effectively protect a neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The mitigation for wildfires is very similar to how we think about mitigation for infectious disease,” said Fischer from Oregon State University. “If one person gets vaccinated out of the whole town, it’s not really going to make much of a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Lawsuits and insurance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While lawmakers have been loath to out-and-out limit development in the most flammable corners of the state, the courts have occasionally stepped in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental preservationists, anti-development activists and even the state’s attorney general have turned to the California Environmental Quality Act to block construction projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The act requires governments to study and publicly report the environmental consequences of a development before approving it. In October, a \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2024/a165677.html\">California appellate court\u003c/a> held that wildfire risk is one of those consequences that may deserve special consideration.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Phillip Babich, a real estate attorney, said he expects to see community groups opposed to nature-adjacent developments demanding “more disclosure, more effort in dealing with wildfire risks” as a result of the ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s executive order has foreclosed that option in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a final check on whether homes are constructed in fire-prone areas: Insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, private insurers have been in a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/state-farm-california-insurance/\">slow-motion withdrawal\u003c/a> from California, citing, in part, the state’s increasingly severe wildfire threat and state regulations that prevent them from charging premiums high enough to profitably cover it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/01/la-fires-california-insurance/\">raft of state regulatory changes\u003c/a> is aimed at enticing insurers back. That may mean that homeowners who have been shuttered from the market will now have the \u003cem>option\u003c/em> to buy insurance — but at a price they can’t afford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That, ultimately, is how insurance markets are supposed to work, said Victoria Xie, a Santa Clara University economist. When insurance companies refuse to cover an area or will only do so at sky-high rates, that’s a strobing, red light that the risk of residing in such a location is very real and very high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe households need financial incentives or some sort of help that allows them to make that move,” she said. Because the best long-term outcome is “obviously for us all to instead of frequently fighting these fires and having unaffordable rates to just stay out of these areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would be a painful transition. But it isn’t likely to happen just yet: Last week, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-insurance-commissioner-moratorium-southern-california-homeowners/\">banned insurance companies\u003c/a> from canceling policies or dropping customers in any of the zip codes that have been burned by the Los Angeles fire for the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Levi Sumagaysay contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "windy-flame-fanning-weather-eases-up-as-progress-made-on-la-area-fires",
"title": "Windy, Flame-Fanning Weather Eases Up as Progress Made on LA-Area Fires",
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"headTitle": "Windy, Flame-Fanning Weather Eases Up as Progress Made on LA-Area Fires | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The windy, flame-fanning weather that put the nation’s second most populous metropolitan region on edge eased up Wednesday as firefighters made significant gains against the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-gofundme-01bc1eaec701d862f442c35a8438519f\">two massive wildfires\u003c/a> burning around Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red-flag warning expired without causing explosive fire growth as feared, though forecasters said \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">gusty winds\u003c/a> could linger into early Thursday, mostly in the mountains. Temperatures were predicted to drop, and a deep marine layer was expected to move in over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those improved conditions should help fire crews make \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-los-angeles-calmer-weather-explainer-10031db80379c587db6af6879f03f01b\">even more headway\u003c/a> and allow residents to return to their neighborhoods to begin rebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">Santa Ana winds\u003c/a> could return early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Good news: We are expecting a much-needed break from the fire weather concerns to close this week,” the weather service posted on social media Wednesday afternoon. “Bad News: Next week is a concern. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, firefighters and police faced new challenges. Since the beginning of the outbreak last week, authorities have arrested about half a dozen people accused of setting new, small fires that were quickly knocked down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One suspect admitted starting a fire in a tree “because he liked the smell of burning leaves,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said. Another said “she enjoyed causing chaos and destruction,” the chief said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have not determined a cause for the major blazes in what is on track to become the nation’s costliest fire disaster, with at least 25 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022546\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022546\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"699\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-800x546.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-1020x696.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-160x109.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of beachfront homes that burned in the Palisades Fire as wildfires cause damage and loss through the LA region on Jan. 15, 2025, in Malibu, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Officials facing questions over response\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LA officials, who already were criticized for hydrants running dry, faced more questions. Fire officials chose not to double the number of firefighters on duty last Tuesday as winds increased, and only five of more than 40 engines were deployed, according to internal records obtained by \u003cem>The Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> and interviews with fire commanders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also did not call in off-duty firefighters until after the Palisades Fire erupted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her decisions. “I can tell you and stand before you, we did everything in our capability to surge where we could,” she told a news conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crowley said that despite “limited capacity” within the department, crews were able to respond swiftly by calling for assistance from other agencies and seeking help from off-duty firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022547\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022547\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A National Guard Army soldier holds a road closed from the Palisade Fire in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles County on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jon Putman/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Increasing containment on the biggest fires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More manageable winds Tuesday allowed firefighters to make gains on the two most destructive fires. Almost half of the Eaton Fire just north of LA was contained, and one-fifth of the fire that destroyed much of the seaside neighborhood of Pacific Palisades was surrounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of those \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-things-to-know-winds-f93d41dc901e352b63e86ab67ef7790e\">broke out on Jan. 7\u003c/a> in conditions similar to what was expected Wednesday, though winds were higher last week when they pushed flames at remarkable speed and carried \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-embers-spread-9d2eff9cac9d355f906ea5f63ace1957\">fire-sparking embers\u003c/a> for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022548\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022548\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers with National Day Laborer Organizing Network helps distribute water, food, clothing, toiletries, diapers and other items for victims of the Eaton fire along East Villa Street in Pasadena on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Packed and ready to go\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-escape-evacuate-senior-citizens-7068811f9be7a03c4932817320d97b73\">Weary and anxious residents\u003c/a> said they were ready to make a hasty escape amid \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/firenado-fire-tornado-california-wildfire-dd53971839343ff6737156af3b983d0b\">the threat from intense winds\u003c/a>.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12022475,news_12020988,news_12021702\"]Javier Vega, who said he feels like he has been “sleeping with one eye open,” and his girlfriend have planned out how they can quickly pack up their two cats, eight fish and leopard gecko if they get orders to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Typically, on any other night, hearing helicopters flying overhead from midnight to 4 in the morning, that would drive anyone crazy,” Vega said. But figuring they were helping firefighters to keep the flames from threatening their neighborhood, he explained, “It was actually soothing for me to go to sleep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Long road of rebuilding ahead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles authorities promised to do everything they could to help people recover and rebuild. However, Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged there is no way to replace much of what has been lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve lost memories, family. All of the experiences that took place there are gone, and gone unexpectedly, gone rapidly,” Bass said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the mayor issued an executive order to eliminate red tape and allow people to live in tiny homes and trailers while they rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Different kind of disaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Thomas Martin works with Calvary Disaster Relief, a group that responds to disasters all over the world. Most times, he shows up after floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, helping people repair their roofs and rip out soggy carpet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is different,” he said. “This is total devastation. There’s nothing much we can do other than pray for the folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Wildfires on the rise across LA\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>With almost no rain in more than eight months, the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/fire-devastation-climate-change-santa-ana-winds-a46e2bb6785b1e325f6076fb22c8fcc5\">brush-filled region\u003c/a> has had more than a dozen wildfires this year, mostly in the greater Los Angeles area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four largest ones have scorched more than 63 square miles (163 square kilometers), roughly three times the size of Manhattan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022550\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022550\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-800x547.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-1020x697.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-160x109.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of repair vehicles near beachside homes that burned in the Palisades Fire as wildfires cause damage and loss through the LA region on Jan. 15, 2025, in Malibu, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Searching for victims\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 people were still missing, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deputies have searched more than 5,500 properties for victims from the Eaton Fire and hoped to finish in that area by Thursday, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the victims of the Eaton Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fire-victim-hollywood-extra-1b1fb3385aca3b3f922f12a588b87fc8\">95-year-old Dalyce Curry\u003c/a>, loved wearing big hair and makeup, her family said. She hobnobbed with stars from old Hollywood, appearing as an extra with Diana Ross in \u003cem>Lady Sings the Blues\u003c/em> and in 1956’s \u003cem>The Ten Commandments\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tents line the grass of Eaton fire base camp at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Entertainment community responds\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Grammy awards ceremony will happen Feb. 2 and focus on helping the city’s recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In challenging times, music has the power to heal, comfort and unite like nothing else,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and Tammy Hurt, chair of the board of trustees, said in a letter sent to academy members that \u003cem>The Associated Press\u003c/em> obtained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated to correct the date of the Grammys awards ceremony to Feb. 2, not Sunday. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Lindsey Bahr in Los Angeles, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, and Julie Walker in New York contributed.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A 'Particularly Dangerous Situation' red-flag warning has expired, but dry conditions and gusty winds are expected to linger. Improved conditions expected later this week could allow residents to return to their neighborhoods. ",
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"title": "Windy, Flame-Fanning Weather Eases Up as Progress Made on LA-Area Fires | KQED",
"description": "A 'Particularly Dangerous Situation' red-flag warning has expired, but dry conditions and gusty winds are expected to linger. Improved conditions expected later this week could allow residents to return to their neighborhoods. ",
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"headline": "Windy, Flame-Fanning Weather Eases Up as Progress Made on LA-Area Fires",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The windy, flame-fanning weather that put the nation’s second most populous metropolitan region on edge eased up Wednesday as firefighters made significant gains against the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-gofundme-01bc1eaec701d862f442c35a8438519f\">two massive wildfires\u003c/a> burning around Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red-flag warning expired without causing explosive fire growth as feared, though forecasters said \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">gusty winds\u003c/a> could linger into early Thursday, mostly in the mountains. Temperatures were predicted to drop, and a deep marine layer was expected to move in over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those improved conditions should help fire crews make \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-los-angeles-calmer-weather-explainer-10031db80379c587db6af6879f03f01b\">even more headway\u003c/a> and allow residents to return to their neighborhoods to begin rebuilding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-wind-wildfires-climate-change-weather-42b55ae1e66b56a6375300e448f01946\">Santa Ana winds\u003c/a> could return early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Good news: We are expecting a much-needed break from the fire weather concerns to close this week,” the weather service posted on social media Wednesday afternoon. “Bad News: Next week is a concern. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, firefighters and police faced new challenges. Since the beginning of the outbreak last week, authorities have arrested about half a dozen people accused of setting new, small fires that were quickly knocked down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One suspect admitted starting a fire in a tree “because he liked the smell of burning leaves,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said. Another said “she enjoyed causing chaos and destruction,” the chief said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have not determined a cause for the major blazes in what is on track to become the nation’s costliest fire disaster, with at least 25 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022546\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022546\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"699\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-800x546.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-1020x696.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-160x109.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of beachfront homes that burned in the Palisades Fire as wildfires cause damage and loss through the LA region on Jan. 15, 2025, in Malibu, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Officials facing questions over response\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>LA officials, who already were criticized for hydrants running dry, faced more questions. Fire officials chose not to double the number of firefighters on duty last Tuesday as winds increased, and only five of more than 40 engines were deployed, according to internal records obtained by \u003cem>The Los Angeles Times\u003c/em> and interviews with fire commanders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The department also did not call in off-duty firefighters until after the Palisades Fire erupted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley defended her decisions. “I can tell you and stand before you, we did everything in our capability to surge where we could,” she told a news conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crowley said that despite “limited capacity” within the department, crews were able to respond swiftly by calling for assistance from other agencies and seeking help from off-duty firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022547\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022547\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193560399-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A National Guard Army soldier holds a road closed from the Palisade Fire in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles County on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Jon Putman/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Increasing containment on the biggest fires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More manageable winds Tuesday allowed firefighters to make gains on the two most destructive fires. Almost half of the Eaton Fire just north of LA was contained, and one-fifth of the fire that destroyed much of the seaside neighborhood of Pacific Palisades was surrounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of those \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-things-to-know-winds-f93d41dc901e352b63e86ab67ef7790e\">broke out on Jan. 7\u003c/a> in conditions similar to what was expected Wednesday, though winds were higher last week when they pushed flames at remarkable speed and carried \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-embers-spread-9d2eff9cac9d355f906ea5f63ace1957\">fire-sparking embers\u003c/a> for miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022548\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022548\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193547533-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Volunteers with National Day Laborer Organizing Network helps distribute water, food, clothing, toiletries, diapers and other items for victims of the Eaton fire along East Villa Street in Pasadena on Jan. 15, 2025. \u003ccite>(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Packed and ready to go\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-escape-evacuate-senior-citizens-7068811f9be7a03c4932817320d97b73\">Weary and anxious residents\u003c/a> said they were ready to make a hasty escape amid \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/firenado-fire-tornado-california-wildfire-dd53971839343ff6737156af3b983d0b\">the threat from intense winds\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Javier Vega, who said he feels like he has been “sleeping with one eye open,” and his girlfriend have planned out how they can quickly pack up their two cats, eight fish and leopard gecko if they get orders to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Typically, on any other night, hearing helicopters flying overhead from midnight to 4 in the morning, that would drive anyone crazy,” Vega said. But figuring they were helping firefighters to keep the flames from threatening their neighborhood, he explained, “It was actually soothing for me to go to sleep.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Long road of rebuilding ahead\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles authorities promised to do everything they could to help people recover and rebuild. However, Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged there is no way to replace much of what has been lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve lost memories, family. All of the experiences that took place there are gone, and gone unexpectedly, gone rapidly,” Bass said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the mayor issued an executive order to eliminate red tape and allow people to live in tiny homes and trailers while they rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Different kind of disaster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Thomas Martin works with Calvary Disaster Relief, a group that responds to disasters all over the world. Most times, he shows up after floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, helping people repair their roofs and rip out soggy carpet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is different,” he said. “This is total devastation. There’s nothing much we can do other than pray for the folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Wildfires on the rise across LA\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>With almost no rain in more than eight months, the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/fire-devastation-climate-change-santa-ana-winds-a46e2bb6785b1e325f6076fb22c8fcc5\">brush-filled region\u003c/a> has had more than a dozen wildfires this year, mostly in the greater Los Angeles area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four largest ones have scorched more than 63 square miles (163 square kilometers), roughly three times the size of Manhattan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022550\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022550\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-800x547.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-1020x697.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194136388-160x109.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of repair vehicles near beachside homes that burned in the Palisades Fire as wildfires cause damage and loss through the LA region on Jan. 15, 2025, in Malibu, Los Angeles County. \u003ccite>(Mario Tama/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Searching for victims\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 people were still missing, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deputies have searched more than 5,500 properties for victims from the Eaton Fire and hoped to finish in that area by Thursday, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the victims of the Eaton Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fire-victim-hollywood-extra-1b1fb3385aca3b3f922f12a588b87fc8\">95-year-old Dalyce Curry\u003c/a>, loved wearing big hair and makeup, her family said. She hobnobbed with stars from old Hollywood, appearing as an extra with Diana Ross in \u003cem>Lady Sings the Blues\u003c/em> and in 1956’s \u003cem>The Ten Commandments\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2193530810-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tents line the grass of Eaton fire base camp at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, on Jan. 14, 2025. \u003ccite>(Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2 class=\"mb-0 pb-2 ap-font-bold\">Entertainment community responds\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Grammy awards ceremony will happen Feb. 2 and focus on helping the city’s recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In challenging times, music has the power to heal, comfort and unite like nothing else,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and Tammy Hurt, chair of the board of trustees, said in a letter sent to academy members that \u003cem>The Associated Press\u003c/em> obtained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated to correct the date of the Grammys awards ceremony to Feb. 2, not Sunday. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Lindsey Bahr in Los Angeles, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, and Julie Walker in New York contributed.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "literally-off-the-charts-las-critically-dry-conditions-stun-scientists-as-fires-rage",
"title": "‘Literally Off the Charts’: LA's Critically Dry Conditions Stun Scientists as Fires Rage",
"publishDate": 1737028838,
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"headTitle": "‘Literally Off the Charts’: LA’s Critically Dry Conditions Stun Scientists as Fires Rage | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>As much of Los Angeles smolders, wind warnings return and fire crews stand guard, scientists say almost unprecedented climatic conditions throughout Southern California led up to the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer was one of the hottest on record, and the extreme swings between wet and dry conditions over the past two years have been unusually severe. Two rainy winters — which promoted heavy growth of brush — have been followed by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/\">near-zero rainfall\u003c/a> for the past eight months and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This pattern of weather whiplash, likely exacerbated by climate change, hasn’t been seen in Southern California since 1992–1993, and before that, 1907–1908. “We find only three instances where an anomalously dry start to the wet season follows back-to-back wet water years,” a team of UCLA researchers wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfires\">report\u003c/a>\u003cem> \u003c/em>released on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soil moisture levels across much of the region from Santa Barbara to San Diego hover between just 2% and 5% of average — leaving dust where there should be mud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, an important measure called “vapor pressure deficit” has exceeded norms. Calculated from a combination of temperature and relative humidity, it reflects the ability of air to draw moisture from the landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way to think about vapor pressure deficit is that it is the drying power of the air,” said John Battles, a UC Berkeley forest ecology professor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Readings from Jan. 8 show an extreme deficit across much of inland Southern California. Such conditions can draw much of the moisture from living plants, so fires become almost unstoppable once they start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s that dry, wind has ultimate power,” said UC Merced climatology professor John Abatzoglou.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Malibu Canyon, local gauges recorded 53 degrees Fahrenheit and relative humidity of 36% on Jan. 4. Three days later, on the day that the Palisades and Eaton fires began, the air temperature was 64 degrees while the relative humidity had dropped to 13%, more than doubling the vapor pressure deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These levels are “literally off the charts,” Battles said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This combination of conditions crossed a dangerous threshold, priming the landscape throughout much of Southern California for high risk of wind-whipped fires. Across seven counties, drought has sapped the air, soil and vegetation of moisture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12022489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40%E2%80%AFPM-scaled-e1736988241249.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1425\" height=\"1412\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249.jpg 1425w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-800x793.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-1020x1011.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-160x159.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1425px) 100vw, 1425px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service issued a \u003ca href=\"https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy2.html\">warning\u003c/a> Tuesday of critical fire weather or red flag warnings from the Mexican border to San Luis Obispo County. The alert predicted gusts up to 50 mph, humidity of a lip-splitting 10%, and virtually no chance that rain would relieve the conditions anytime soon. This comes on the heels of the \u003ca href=\"https://sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfires#:~:text=In%20Figure%203%20(bottom%20panel)%2C%20we%20show%20that%20the%20summer%2Dfall%20(June%2DDecember)%20of%202024%2C%20with%20a%20mean%20temperature%20of%2067.1%C2%B0F%2C%20ranks%20as%20the%20third%20hottest%20since%20at%20least%201895%20in%20coastal%20Southern%20California.\">third hottest summer\u003c/a> in coastal Southern California since at least 1895.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The threat goes far beyond Los Angeles, affecting much of Southern California. Across Orange County “current live and dead fuel moistures remain at or below established critically low thresholds,” said Sean Doran, a public information officer with the Orange County Fire Authority. He called Tuesday’s fire danger level in Orange County “extreme.” The county has dried-out canyons, near residential areas, full of ultra-flammable chaparral and sage scrub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1422px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1422\" height=\"987\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913.jpg 1422w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-800x555.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-1020x708.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-160x111.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1422px) 100vw, 1422px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chaparral and sage scrub in Orange County’s Upper Newport Bay is bone-dry after months with no rain. Jan. 11, 2025. Fire officials called the danger ‘extreme’ in the county. \u003ccite>(Marla Cone/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials and researchers routinely weigh samples of vegetation, dehydrate them and weigh them again. This allows them to calculate the “live fuel moisture” percentage, which tells them how flammable the landscape is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These measurements and related data are critical to firefighters, who monitor them regularly so they can gauge the risk of a fire erupting and determine which tools, vehicles and equipment are needed to fight the blazes, explained Scott McLean, a Cal Fire public information officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last May, the \u003ca href=\"https://fire.lacounty.gov/fire-weather-danger/\">live fuel moisture\u003c/a> content of Santa Monica Mountains chamise — a prominent chaparral plant — was a wet and heavy 143%. That means that the weight of the water in the plants was almost 1.5 times the weight of its woody material. (A reading of 100% means equal parts water and plant mass.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By November, live fuel moisture in the same region had dipped to just over 60%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more recently, on Jan. 7, measurements from Santa Barbara vegetation showed levels of 61% — substantially below the 77% average for this time of year. That means their water weight was less than two-thirds of their plant material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once the live fuel moisture hits around 60%, that is the critical danger zone,” said UC Merced’s Abatzoglou, explaining that below this level, vegetation loses much of its resistance to fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To put it another way, he said, at and below about 60%, “the live fuels behave and burn more like dead fuels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abatzoglou cited \u003ca href=\"https://sbfiresafecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dennison_moritz_ijwf_2009-1.pdf\">research\u003c/a> from 2009 suggesting that a critical threshold between vegetation that can and cannot support a large fire lies around 79% — which would put current conditions much deeper into the danger zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dead vegetation, baked by the sun for months or years, is also perilously dry. “By January 7th of 2025, dead-fuel moisture was 6th lowest on record for that date,” the UCLA team wrote in Monday’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-brush-clearing-wouldn-t-help-much-experts-say\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Brush clearing wouldn’t help much, experts say\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While President-elect Donald Trump has claimed on social media that incompetent state leadership led to the wildfires and hindered efforts to tame the flames, experts say there is little that could have prevented the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The extremely dry conditions have been aggravated by winds gusting up to 100 miles per hour — what UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain recently likened to using an atmospheric blow dryer on bone-dry terrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexandra Syphard, a senior research ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute and an adjunct professor at San Diego State University, said the extreme conditions have rendered humans powerless, at least in the nearterm, to subdue wildfire threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there is anything that wildland management could have done to qualitatively or substantially alter the outcome of these fires,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While thinning trees or conducting controlled burns can reduce fire dangers in some forests, the same approach does not work in the areas of Southern California dominated by chaparral, Syphard said. These areas are too vast to clear brush, encompassing thousands of square miles.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1994311,news_12020988,news_12021029,news_12021702\"]She said such clearing tends to increase fire danger in chaparral landscapes by killing off both mature plants and the natural seed bank in the soil, triggering a long-lasting conversion to grasslands, which she says create an “explosively flammable” duff layer each summer and fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best preventative strategies for reducing fire danger in a chaparral landscape, Syphard said, are to “create very strategically placed fuel breaks that enable safe firefighter access” as well as to “rethink where homes are constructed and how to make houses more resilient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, though it’s not likely to provide any immediate relief of the dangers facing millions of Californians living in or near flammable landscapes, is another difficult but necessary solution, experts say. Global warming is conditioning the already arid Southwest to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As much as 88% of the increasing average vapor pressure deficit in the western United States is linked to human-caused warming, according to a 2021 UCLA \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111875118\">paper\u003c/a>. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s, the number of days with an extreme vapor pressure deficit nearly doubled in the first two decades of this century, the researchers found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with rates of global emissions increasing in spite of international pledges to reduce them, this increasing aridity is only going to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This change in risk requires urgent and effective societal adaptation and mitigation responses,” the UCLA scientists wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new UCLA report noted that linking weather anomalies to climate change “requires deep analysis.” But the authors were confident about one potential connection: “The clearest way in which climate change may have intensified the January 2025 wildfires is the anomalously warm summer and fall of 2024,” they wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With or without a climate change link, the extremes seen in Southern California over the past two years have been exceptional, including a hurricane-driven cloudburst in August 2023, an extraordinarily wet February last year that delivered an average of almost half an inch of rain daily, and a dry streak that is quickly catching up with 1962–1963 as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we08aa.php\">longest\u003c/a> in the region’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Battles, at UC Berkeley, said the likely role of climate change in the weather extremes that are clobbering California makes direct human intervention almost negligible, and better planning key to safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are global conditions playing out … There’s very little California can do to reshape these weather patterns,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the climate making things drier, we need to think about how we transition into a new state, and how we deal with wildfire and development and public safety. These are not hard science questions, but they’re super hard policy questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A mixture of low moisture averages and extreme swings from wet to dry is creating a combination of climatic conditions that has crossed into a danger zone, priming much of Southern California for wind-whipped fires.",
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"title": "‘Literally Off the Charts’: LA's Critically Dry Conditions Stun Scientists as Fires Rage | KQED",
"description": "A mixture of low moisture averages and extreme swings from wet to dry is creating a combination of climatic conditions that has crossed into a danger zone, priming much of Southern California for wind-whipped fires.",
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"headline": "‘Literally Off the Charts’: LA's Critically Dry Conditions Stun Scientists as Fires Rage",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/alastair-bland/\">Alastair Bland\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As much of Los Angeles smolders, wind warnings return and fire crews stand guard, scientists say almost unprecedented climatic conditions throughout Southern California led up to the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer was one of the hottest on record, and the extreme swings between wet and dry conditions over the past two years have been unusually severe. Two rainy winters — which promoted heavy growth of brush — have been followed by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/\">near-zero rainfall\u003c/a> for the past eight months and counting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This pattern of weather whiplash, likely exacerbated by climate change, hasn’t been seen in Southern California since 1992–1993, and before that, 1907–1908. “We find only three instances where an anomalously dry start to the wet season follows back-to-back wet water years,” a team of UCLA researchers wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfires\">report\u003c/a>\u003cem> \u003c/em>released on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soil moisture levels across much of the region from Santa Barbara to San Diego hover between just 2% and 5% of average — leaving dust where there should be mud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, an important measure called “vapor pressure deficit” has exceeded norms. Calculated from a combination of temperature and relative humidity, it reflects the ability of air to draw moisture from the landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The way to think about vapor pressure deficit is that it is the drying power of the air,” said John Battles, a UC Berkeley forest ecology professor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Readings from Jan. 8 show an extreme deficit across much of inland Southern California. Such conditions can draw much of the moisture from living plants, so fires become almost unstoppable once they start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s that dry, wind has ultimate power,” said UC Merced climatology professor John Abatzoglou.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Malibu Canyon, local gauges recorded 53 degrees Fahrenheit and relative humidity of 36% on Jan. 4. Three days later, on the day that the Palisades and Eaton fires began, the air temperature was 64 degrees while the relative humidity had dropped to 13%, more than doubling the vapor pressure deficit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These levels are “literally off the charts,” Battles said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This combination of conditions crossed a dangerous threshold, priming the landscape throughout much of Southern California for high risk of wind-whipped fires. Across seven counties, drought has sapped the air, soil and vegetation of moisture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12022489\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40%E2%80%AFPM-scaled-e1736988241249.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1425\" height=\"1412\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249.jpg 1425w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-800x793.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-1020x1011.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Image-1-15-25-at-4.40 PM-scaled-e1736988241249-160x159.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1425px) 100vw, 1425px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service issued a \u003ca href=\"https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy2.html\">warning\u003c/a> Tuesday of critical fire weather or red flag warnings from the Mexican border to San Luis Obispo County. The alert predicted gusts up to 50 mph, humidity of a lip-splitting 10%, and virtually no chance that rain would relieve the conditions anytime soon. This comes on the heels of the \u003ca href=\"https://sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfires#:~:text=In%20Figure%203%20(bottom%20panel)%2C%20we%20show%20that%20the%20summer%2Dfall%20(June%2DDecember)%20of%202024%2C%20with%20a%20mean%20temperature%20of%2067.1%C2%B0F%2C%20ranks%20as%20the%20third%20hottest%20since%20at%20least%201895%20in%20coastal%20Southern%20California.\">third hottest summer\u003c/a> in coastal Southern California since at least 1895.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The threat goes far beyond Los Angeles, affecting much of Southern California. Across Orange County “current live and dead fuel moistures remain at or below established critically low thresholds,” said Sean Doran, a public information officer with the Orange County Fire Authority. He called Tuesday’s fire danger level in Orange County “extreme.” The county has dried-out canyons, near residential areas, full of ultra-flammable chaparral and sage scrub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1422px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1422\" height=\"987\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913.jpg 1422w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-800x555.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-1020x708.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/011125-OC-Chaparral-MC-CM-01-copy-e1736987479913-160x111.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1422px) 100vw, 1422px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chaparral and sage scrub in Orange County’s Upper Newport Bay is bone-dry after months with no rain. Jan. 11, 2025. Fire officials called the danger ‘extreme’ in the county. \u003ccite>(Marla Cone/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials and researchers routinely weigh samples of vegetation, dehydrate them and weigh them again. This allows them to calculate the “live fuel moisture” percentage, which tells them how flammable the landscape is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These measurements and related data are critical to firefighters, who monitor them regularly so they can gauge the risk of a fire erupting and determine which tools, vehicles and equipment are needed to fight the blazes, explained Scott McLean, a Cal Fire public information officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last May, the \u003ca href=\"https://fire.lacounty.gov/fire-weather-danger/\">live fuel moisture\u003c/a> content of Santa Monica Mountains chamise — a prominent chaparral plant — was a wet and heavy 143%. That means that the weight of the water in the plants was almost 1.5 times the weight of its woody material. (A reading of 100% means equal parts water and plant mass.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By November, live fuel moisture in the same region had dipped to just over 60%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more recently, on Jan. 7, measurements from Santa Barbara vegetation showed levels of 61% — substantially below the 77% average for this time of year. That means their water weight was less than two-thirds of their plant material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once the live fuel moisture hits around 60%, that is the critical danger zone,” said UC Merced’s Abatzoglou, explaining that below this level, vegetation loses much of its resistance to fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To put it another way, he said, at and below about 60%, “the live fuels behave and burn more like dead fuels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abatzoglou cited \u003ca href=\"https://sbfiresafecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dennison_moritz_ijwf_2009-1.pdf\">research\u003c/a> from 2009 suggesting that a critical threshold between vegetation that can and cannot support a large fire lies around 79% — which would put current conditions much deeper into the danger zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dead vegetation, baked by the sun for months or years, is also perilously dry. “By January 7th of 2025, dead-fuel moisture was 6th lowest on record for that date,” the UCLA team wrote in Monday’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-brush-clearing-wouldn-t-help-much-experts-say\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Brush clearing wouldn’t help much, experts say\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While President-elect Donald Trump has claimed on social media that incompetent state leadership led to the wildfires and hindered efforts to tame the flames, experts say there is little that could have prevented the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The extremely dry conditions have been aggravated by winds gusting up to 100 miles per hour — what UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain recently likened to using an atmospheric blow dryer on bone-dry terrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexandra Syphard, a senior research ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute and an adjunct professor at San Diego State University, said the extreme conditions have rendered humans powerless, at least in the nearterm, to subdue wildfire threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there is anything that wildland management could have done to qualitatively or substantially alter the outcome of these fires,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While thinning trees or conducting controlled burns can reduce fire dangers in some forests, the same approach does not work in the areas of Southern California dominated by chaparral, Syphard said. These areas are too vast to clear brush, encompassing thousands of square miles.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>She said such clearing tends to increase fire danger in chaparral landscapes by killing off both mature plants and the natural seed bank in the soil, triggering a long-lasting conversion to grasslands, which she says create an “explosively flammable” duff layer each summer and fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The best preventative strategies for reducing fire danger in a chaparral landscape, Syphard said, are to “create very strategically placed fuel breaks that enable safe firefighter access” as well as to “rethink where homes are constructed and how to make houses more resilient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, though it’s not likely to provide any immediate relief of the dangers facing millions of Californians living in or near flammable landscapes, is another difficult but necessary solution, experts say. Global warming is conditioning the already arid Southwest to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As much as 88% of the increasing average vapor pressure deficit in the western United States is linked to human-caused warming, according to a 2021 UCLA \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2111875118\">paper\u003c/a>. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s, the number of days with an extreme vapor pressure deficit nearly doubled in the first two decades of this century, the researchers found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with rates of global emissions increasing in spite of international pledges to reduce them, this increasing aridity is only going to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This change in risk requires urgent and effective societal adaptation and mitigation responses,” the UCLA scientists wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new UCLA report noted that linking weather anomalies to climate change “requires deep analysis.” But the authors were confident about one potential connection: “The clearest way in which climate change may have intensified the January 2025 wildfires is the anomalously warm summer and fall of 2024,” they wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With or without a climate change link, the extremes seen in Southern California over the past two years have been exceptional, including a hurricane-driven cloudburst in August 2023, an extraordinarily wet February last year that delivered an average of almost half an inch of rain daily, and a dry streak that is quickly catching up with 1962–1963 as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we08aa.php\">longest\u003c/a> in the region’s history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Battles, at UC Berkeley, said the likely role of climate change in the weather extremes that are clobbering California makes direct human intervention almost negligible, and better planning key to safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are global conditions playing out … There’s very little California can do to reshape these weather patterns,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the climate making things drier, we need to think about how we transition into a new state, and how we deal with wildfire and development and public safety. These are not hard science questions, but they’re super hard policy questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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},
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"id": "baycurious",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
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