Fireworks Warehouse in Yolo County, a Major Bay Area Fireworks Supplier, Goes Up in Smoke
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Rebuilding LA: Here's What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key
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Private Firefighters Are Increasingly Popular With Insurers. But Do They Pose a Risk?
PG&E Says It May Have Started Yet Another Major Northern California Wildfire in June
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven people who are believed to be employees at the facility are still missing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San José, the explosion forced officials to cancel a fireworks show that was supposed to take place at Lake Cunningham Park. Instead, the city will have its first-ever drone show in addition to food trucks, live performances and other activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tragedy in Yolo County has affected multiple fireworks displays across the state,” San José Councilmember Domingo Candelas said in a statement. “While we have to cancel the fireworks, the celebration is still on. … Our hope is to still unite our community in celebration but also deter the use of illegal fireworks in our neighborhood.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A fireworks display in Sonoma County, arranged by the Cloverdale Lion Club, was also cancelled as a result of the warehouse explosion. St. Helena in Napa County also announced that it would not be moving forward with its show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This incident goes well beyond any product or any show, as we know there are still individuals that are unaccounted for,” said Dave Jahns, director of community services in St. Helena. The city’s fireworks display was cancelled after the explosion destroyed its reserve of fireworks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some people may be disappointed that we’re not able to move forward with fireworks,” he continued. “We just want everyone to understand that due to the circumstances and due to the tragedy at hand … we really think this is the right decision to move forward with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other festivities, such as a bicycle parade and a festival with live music and food vendors, are continuing as planned, Jahns said, adding that he hopes families will come and celebrate despite the change in plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First responders from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office and Cal Fire, as well as federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are looking into what may have caused the incident. Officials with the Sheriff’s Office are calling it an active crime scene investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An evacuation order was issued for the area around the warehouse, and officers are urging residents to avoid the site until investigators determine that the area is secure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will try to release information as it becomes available,” Harmon said. “Our priority is to make it safe and to recover any victims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Maps Update Bay Area Fire Hazard Zones for 1st Time in Over a Decade",
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"content": "\u003cp>The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection this week issued long-anticipated new versions of maps outlining areas of fire hazard in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> and much of the North Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The maps, which Cal Fire is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">supposed to update every five years\u003c/a> but last did so in 2007, are used to establish the building codes that new communities and homes must adhere to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the last decade, we’ve seen a significant change in our climate, in our weather conditions that have all impacted the severity of wildfires,“ said Daniel Berlant, state fire marshal. “These maps have been really important for us to get out the door so that we can reflect those mitigation changes that need to occur.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new maps are based on the best available science and technology, offering a fine-grained view of an area’s fire hazard, Berlant said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An interactive version of the Cal Fire maps is available \u003ca href=\"https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/6a9cb66bb1824cd98756812af41292a0\">here\u003c/a>. For the purposes of these maps, the word “hazard” does not exactly mean “risk.” Hazard incorporates topography, climate and dominant vegetation type (elements of the natural environment that are not easily changed). Risk, on the other hand, depends on these hazards plus ways the environment has been altered, whether by buildings, landscaping or mitigation projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re the second phase of Cal Fire’s maps update. Last year, the agency updated its \u003ca href=\"https://calfire-forestry.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=988d431a42b242b29d89597ab693d008\">maps for the State Responsibility Area\u003c/a>, the one-third of the state where Cal Fire has responsibility for preventing and protecting against wildfires. These new maps cover areas that are protected by local fire departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=82d450fa0ec846d1912766f930163710\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Source: \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> | Map by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A frequent concern voiced by members of the public is that these maps will cause their insurance company to raise their rates or change their policy. \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/osfm-website/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones/cdi-fhsz.pdf?rev=caf1f81c5a1247a785bd94ab86f9d69d&hash=3D39394A7206776CF73EA2B2A614B84D\">A Q&A from California’s Department of Insurance \u003c/a>seeks to quell these fears, pointing out that insurance companies use their own maps — similar but proprietarily developed — in deciding which properties they’ll underwrite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While previous maps only had two levels of fire hazard, these new ones have three. Homes that now find themselves in “very high” fire hazard zones will be subject to new defensible space requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12026808 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25016123557665-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the release of these maps on Monday, cities and counties are required within 30 days to hold a public hearing and make them available to the general public. Then, they have 120 days to go through the process of adopting the maps, with the ability to add extra protections and put them into their local ordinance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The maps covering the Bay Area and North Coast come two weeks after Cal Fire released updated maps for much of the rest of Northern California, from the Sacramento Valley to the Oregon border, on Feb. 10. Maps covering broadly the Central Coast and inland will be released March 10, with southern and eastern California arriving March 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection this week issued long-anticipated new versions of maps outlining areas of fire hazard in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> and much of the North Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The maps, which Cal Fire is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">supposed to update every five years\u003c/a> but last did so in 2007, are used to establish the building codes that new communities and homes must adhere to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the last decade, we’ve seen a significant change in our climate, in our weather conditions that have all impacted the severity of wildfires,“ said Daniel Berlant, state fire marshal. “These maps have been really important for us to get out the door so that we can reflect those mitigation changes that need to occur.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new maps are based on the best available science and technology, offering a fine-grained view of an area’s fire hazard, Berlant said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An interactive version of the Cal Fire maps is available \u003ca href=\"https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/6a9cb66bb1824cd98756812af41292a0\">here\u003c/a>. For the purposes of these maps, the word “hazard” does not exactly mean “risk.” Hazard incorporates topography, climate and dominant vegetation type (elements of the natural environment that are not easily changed). Risk, on the other hand, depends on these hazards plus ways the environment has been altered, whether by buildings, landscaping or mitigation projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re the second phase of Cal Fire’s maps update. Last year, the agency updated its \u003ca href=\"https://calfire-forestry.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=988d431a42b242b29d89597ab693d008\">maps for the State Responsibility Area\u003c/a>, the one-third of the state where Cal Fire has responsibility for preventing and protecting against wildfires. These new maps cover areas that are protected by local fire departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=82d450fa0ec846d1912766f930163710\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Source: \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> | Map by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A frequent concern voiced by members of the public is that these maps will cause their insurance company to raise their rates or change their policy. \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/osfm-website/what-we-do/community-wildfire-preparedness-and-mitigation/fire-hazard-severity-zones/cdi-fhsz.pdf?rev=caf1f81c5a1247a785bd94ab86f9d69d&hash=3D39394A7206776CF73EA2B2A614B84D\">A Q&A from California’s Department of Insurance \u003c/a>seeks to quell these fears, pointing out that insurance companies use their own maps — similar but proprietarily developed — in deciding which properties they’ll underwrite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While previous maps only had two levels of fire hazard, these new ones have three. Homes that now find themselves in “very high” fire hazard zones will be subject to new defensible space requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the release of these maps on Monday, cities and counties are required within 30 days to hold a public hearing and make them available to the general public. Then, they have 120 days to go through the process of adopting the maps, with the ability to add extra protections and put them into their local ordinance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The maps covering the Bay Area and North Coast come two weeks after Cal Fire released updated maps for much of the rest of Northern California, from the Sacramento Valley to the Oregon border, on Feb. 10. Maps covering broadly the Central Coast and inland will be released March 10, with southern and eastern California arriving March 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "rebuilding-la-heres-what-fire-survivors-and-experts-say-is-key",
"title": "Rebuilding LA: Here's What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key",
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"content": "\u003cp>Annie Barbour knows what it feels like to lose everything she worked for in an instant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home she bought in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood in 1989 was almost paid off. She had just started to make renovations to prepare it for her son and his wife to live there someday. Then it burned — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/8/tubbs-fire-central-lnu-complex/\">more than 5,600 other structures\u003c/a> in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she returned to the spot where her home once stood, all she could see was rubble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whole place looked like a bomb had gone off,” she said. “You could see all the way through Coffey Park. No houses all the way to the railroad tracks. It was decimated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a one-story, taupe house with white eaves and a neatly trimmed front yard. Many of her neighbors’ homes have been rebuilt, as well. To the untrained eye, it might look like any other suburban neighborhood in the state, but most of the homes now have features designed to withstand wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbour and her neighbors’ experiences with rebuilding offer lessons — backed by the latest research from architects and experts — for Southern Californians displaced by January’s wildfires, who are now just beginning to think about whether to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024077\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024077\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, fire survivors and neighbors, Annie Barbour, Ernest Chapman and Danielle Bryant in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Their homes burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barbour said she never considered not rebuilding her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all in shock,” she said. “And it took us a bit to just get our feet on the ground. But I really felt propelled by my anxiety to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every fire survivor can rebuild. A year after Barbour lost her home in Santa Rosa, the Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Paradise. Remaining residents have slowly built back some of those homes, about \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\">600 a year\u003c/a>, but the city is significantly less populated than it was before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the cost to rebuild has only increased and most insurance companies have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">limited, or altogether stopped\u003c/a>, offering policies in certain areas with high fire-risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking at $10,000 to $20,000 a year for fire insurance, which doesn’t work for middle class Californians or those on a fixed income,” said Dr. Crystal Kolden with UC Merced’s Department of Engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for those who can and want to rebuild, fire experts say understanding how wildfires move and grow can help homeowners protect their house against the next one. That means reducing the fuels that feed fires, said Ian Giammanco, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you think about a hurricane or tornado, they’re not getting more intense because they’ve destroyed a bunch of buildings, but a wildfire absolutely is when it turns into one of these conflagration events,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution? Starve the fire of fuels by hardening homes, redesigning yards with fires in mind, and implementing neighborhood-scaled mitigation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024073\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Annie Barbour’s former home where she raised her son, in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Annie’s home burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. Since then, she has rebuilt her home to better protect it from wildfires, where her son and daughter-in-law now live. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding a home with fire-resistant materials\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When homeowners consider hardening their homes against earthquakes or hurricanes, they have to consider its structural integrity. With wildfires, it’s all about the outside of the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting from the top, Giammanco said an up-to-date roof can make a world of difference for a home’s chances of surviving a fire. A \u003ca href=\"https://surviving-wildfire.extension.org/fire-ratings-for-roofing-material/#:~:text=Class%20A%20is%20the%20highest,an%20untreated%20wood%20shake%20roof.\">“Class A” roof\u003c/a>, which can be made of asphalt and fiberglass, concrete, clay or other materials, is the most fire resistant and is often required \u003ca href=\"https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/CABC2022P1/chapter-15-roof-assemblies-and-rooftop-structures/CABC2022P1-Ch15-Sec1505.2\">by California’s building code\u003c/a> for new construction in fire-sensitive areas. Some homeowners may choose a metal roof, which can be more expensive than an asphalt one, but is slightly more durable than asphalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below the roof, vents and eaves on the outside of the home can sometimes carry embers or hold debris, which can ignite inside or along a home. \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> recommends installing vents with metal mesh screens, which block the embers before they enter a home and will not immediately melt in the heat, along with closing eaves with similar, nonflammable materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Air vents constructed at Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moving down, the \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">walls of a home\u003c/a> can also be built using stucco, concrete fiber board siding, or insulated concrete form, all of which are both less combustible and more energy efficient. These building materials are used to construct some homes today, but Giammanco said they would need to be adopted more broadly, especially in fire-prone areas, in order to achieve the scale needed to see them as the default option in homes across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of these materials are readily available today,” he said. “We are not asking for something new to be invented. We can take building materials we already know about that we already use and simply apply them in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, Giammanco said it’s important to make sure the bottom of the house is not sitting on flammable material. The most critical part of the wall is the six inches between the ground and the home, which should be noncombustible, he said. Barbour’s home was rebuilt on a thick concrete slab, which holds the house slightly above the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bottom of Annie Barbour’s home sits on a concrete slab in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Concrete, which is naturally fire-proof, will protect the bottom of the home from fire damage. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Architect Brandon Jørgensen had recently finished a home in Napa, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/9/atlas-fire-southern-lnu-complex\">2017 Atlas Fire\u003c/a> started. The blaze, which broke out the same night as Santa Rosa’s Tubbs Fire, destroyed 783 structures and killed six people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home was built with a Class A roof, without gutters or vents where embers could collect and had walls made of stone and cedar. Each external wall had several inches of concrete and earthen berms — compacted dirt or gravel — at its base to protect them from embers that could collect there during a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The house took on a large amount of embers and those embers collected in the dead spaces at the base of the walls,” he said. “And the house was undamaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Landscaping makes a difference \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next line of defense against a wildfire is the area immediately surrounding a home, what researchers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">Zone Zero\u003c/a>.” This area should have \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zone-zero-mandates-near-completion-high-wildfire-risk-areas\">nothing combustible within it\u003c/a>. Imagine concrete sidewalks, beds of stone pebbles or gravel around the home instead of shrubs, wood mulch and wooden fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Five feet around our homes — it’s the last place where things connect fire physically to our homes,” Giammanco said. “If we can make that noncombustible, we help break that chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Mediterranean climate means some of the state’s vegetation is flammable and is adapted to fire, according to Kolden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the most common — and also most flammable — plants Kolden sees in Californians’ yards are Italian cypress trees and juniper shrubs. Italian cypress trees can burn down quickly and spread embers through the air, igniting whatever it lands on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1604312663660502\">Juniper trees\u003c/a>, when set on fire, can become a “Roman candle” and shower flames around it. As homeowners in Southern California rebuild, Kolden, a former firefighter, hopes they will rethink planting these trees near their homes and instead choose plants that are still aesthetically pleasing, but less flammable, like succulents or flower annuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bed of pebbles line up the front yard of Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Pebbles are not flammable. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Tubbs Fire, a wooden fence encircled Barbour’s home and acted as a wick, spreading the fire from house to house. Since then, Barbour has rebuilt much of that fence, but the last five feet — the part that touches her home — was replaced with a metal gate, which can stop the flame from reaching her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her neighbors still have wooden fences that touch their homes, but after seeing Barbour’s gate, some have asked her for quotes on how much it might cost to make that change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My home is paid off, I don’t need to lose it again, so I’ll do whatever I can do,” she said. “It would be really ridiculous for me to not set an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A 5-foot metal gate which separates Annie Barbour’s former home from the neighbor’s home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. The metal gate breaks the spread of a wildfire to the home. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a house is still a home, and there are certain changes Barbour knows she needs to make to ensure hers is wildfire-resistant. Though, it doesn’t mean those changes are any less painful to enact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, a Japanese maple tree sits in her backyard, a gift a friend gave her after she rebuilt her home. Its branches and brightly colored leaves touch her home’s back wall, closest to the primary bedroom. She knows she will have to cut it down eventually, but she said it will hurt. She recently cut down a blooming wisteria vine on her boyfriend’s property to make it more fire-safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was beautiful, and he was like ‘I’ve trained that for years, it’s one of my happiest features when I come around in the garage, and it is draped around the porch,’” she said. “We finally came to a meeting of minds, and he stayed inside while I hacked it down. It was very hard for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Building back your community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu that were destroyed in the fires were in an area fire experts call the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">According to Cal Fire\u003c/a>, one of the most effective ways to mitigate wildfires is to create a large “defensible space” of clean, noncombustible materials 100 feet around a home.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1965575,news_12023793, science_12022615,news_12015150,news_12021019\"] The homes rebuilt there should not only use wildfire-focused building codes to ensure it can meaningfully resist fire, Giammanco said, but should be spaced farther apart from each other, especially if they are within 10 feet of their neighbor’s house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key is to make sure the outer ring of structures that butt up against where the wildfire is going to enter that community have as much protection as we can give them,” he said. “It allows us to use almost a perimeter defense working our way inward where we could allow dense construction because we’ve got really good provisions and protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Coffey Park, a cement wall runs along the back of Barbour’s property and the other homes along her street, which is parallel to a busy thoroughfare. This type of wall is commonplace in suburbs across the country. California has spent more than any other state — over \u003ca href=\"https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_barriers/inventory/graphs/graph01.cfm\">$1 billion since 1963\u003c/a> — to construct these walls, which block sound pollution from highways and busy roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the fire, Coffey Park’s wall had a wooden beam running along the top of it, which spread the flames across the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024478\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A hopper wall, seen from Annie Barbour’s former home, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. Right: A hopper wall along Hopper St. in Santa Rosa, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But these walls, if constructed with fire resistant materials, can also act as a barrier against oncoming flames. Coffey Park’s wall was rebuilt with styrofoam supported by rebar and cement, encased in a metal cage and concrete. Those materials, assembled by the building company\u003ca href=\"https://www.rsg3d.com/\"> RSG-3\u003c/a>, make the wall more fire resistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California, and the rest of the world, grapples with the increasingly damaging impacts of climate change, Kolden said the state cannot afford to design its cities the same way it has for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are places that were predominantly built during an era of really different approaches to building communities — more suburban tracts of cookie-cutter housing was the norm,” she said. “What Altadena and Pacific Palisades have right now is an opportunity to say, ‘Alright, we have a blank slate with a lot of stakeholders, and every parcel owner is a stakeholder in the future.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The L.A. fires destroyed nearly 12,000 homes so far. As the city rebuilds, what design factors should be considered so that homes can better withstand wildfires and other natural disasters in the face of climate change? ",
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"title": "Rebuilding LA: Here's What Fire Survivors and Experts Say Is Key | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Annie Barbour knows what it feels like to lose everything she worked for in an instant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home she bought in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood in 1989 was almost paid off. She had just started to make renovations to prepare it for her son and his wife to live there someday. Then it burned — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/8/tubbs-fire-central-lnu-complex/\">more than 5,600 other structures\u003c/a> in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she returned to the spot where her home once stood, all she could see was rubble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whole place looked like a bomb had gone off,” she said. “You could see all the way through Coffey Park. No houses all the way to the railroad tracks. It was decimated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, there’s a one-story, taupe house with white eaves and a neatly trimmed front yard. Many of her neighbors’ homes have been rebuilt, as well. To the untrained eye, it might look like any other suburban neighborhood in the state, but most of the homes now have features designed to withstand wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbour and her neighbors’ experiences with rebuilding offer lessons — backed by the latest research from architects and experts — for Southern Californians displaced by January’s wildfires, who are now just beginning to think about whether to rebuild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024077\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024077\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-29-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, fire survivors and neighbors, Annie Barbour, Ernest Chapman and Danielle Bryant in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Their homes burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Barbour said she never considered not rebuilding her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were all in shock,” she said. “And it took us a bit to just get our feet on the ground. But I really felt propelled by my anxiety to move forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every fire survivor can rebuild. A year after Barbour lost her home in Santa Rosa, the Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Paradise. Remaining residents have slowly built back some of those homes, about \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\">600 a year\u003c/a>, but the city is significantly less populated than it was before the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the cost to rebuild has only increased and most insurance companies have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">limited, or altogether stopped\u003c/a>, offering policies in certain areas with high fire-risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are looking at $10,000 to $20,000 a year for fire insurance, which doesn’t work for middle class Californians or those on a fixed income,” said Dr. Crystal Kolden with UC Merced’s Department of Engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for those who can and want to rebuild, fire experts say understanding how wildfires move and grow can help homeowners protect their house against the next one. That means reducing the fuels that feed fires, said Ian Giammanco, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you think about a hurricane or tornado, they’re not getting more intense because they’ve destroyed a bunch of buildings, but a wildfire absolutely is when it turns into one of these conflagration events,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution? Starve the fire of fuels by hardening homes, redesigning yards with fires in mind, and implementing neighborhood-scaled mitigation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024073\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-4-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Annie Barbour’s former home where she raised her son, in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Annie’s home burned down during the Tubbs Fire in 2017. Since then, she has rebuilt her home to better protect it from wildfires, where her son and daughter-in-law now live. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Rebuilding a home with fire-resistant materials\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When homeowners consider hardening their homes against earthquakes or hurricanes, they have to consider its structural integrity. With wildfires, it’s all about the outside of the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting from the top, Giammanco said an up-to-date roof can make a world of difference for a home’s chances of surviving a fire. A \u003ca href=\"https://surviving-wildfire.extension.org/fire-ratings-for-roofing-material/#:~:text=Class%20A%20is%20the%20highest,an%20untreated%20wood%20shake%20roof.\">“Class A” roof\u003c/a>, which can be made of asphalt and fiberglass, concrete, clay or other materials, is the most fire resistant and is often required \u003ca href=\"https://codes.iccsafe.org/s/CABC2022P1/chapter-15-roof-assemblies-and-rooftop-structures/CABC2022P1-Ch15-Sec1505.2\">by California’s building code\u003c/a> for new construction in fire-sensitive areas. Some homeowners may choose a metal roof, which can be more expensive than an asphalt one, but is slightly more durable than asphalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below the roof, vents and eaves on the outside of the home can sometimes carry embers or hold debris, which can ignite inside or along a home. \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">Cal Fire\u003c/a> recommends installing vents with metal mesh screens, which block the embers before they enter a home and will not immediately melt in the heat, along with closing eaves with similar, nonflammable materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024079\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024079\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-33-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Air vents constructed at Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moving down, the \u003ca href=\"https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/hardening-your-home/\">walls of a home\u003c/a> can also be built using stucco, concrete fiber board siding, or insulated concrete form, all of which are both less combustible and more energy efficient. These building materials are used to construct some homes today, but Giammanco said they would need to be adopted more broadly, especially in fire-prone areas, in order to achieve the scale needed to see them as the default option in homes across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of these materials are readily available today,” he said. “We are not asking for something new to be invented. We can take building materials we already know about that we already use and simply apply them in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, Giammanco said it’s important to make sure the bottom of the house is not sitting on flammable material. The most critical part of the wall is the six inches between the ground and the home, which should be noncombustible, he said. Barbour’s home was rebuilt on a thick concrete slab, which holds the house slightly above the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bottom of Annie Barbour’s home sits on a concrete slab in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Concrete, which is naturally fire-proof, will protect the bottom of the home from fire damage. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Architect Brandon Jørgensen had recently finished a home in Napa, when the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/10/9/atlas-fire-southern-lnu-complex\">2017 Atlas Fire\u003c/a> started. The blaze, which broke out the same night as Santa Rosa’s Tubbs Fire, destroyed 783 structures and killed six people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home was built with a Class A roof, without gutters or vents where embers could collect and had walls made of stone and cedar. Each external wall had several inches of concrete and earthen berms — compacted dirt or gravel — at its base to protect them from embers that could collect there during a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The house took on a large amount of embers and those embers collected in the dead spaces at the base of the walls,” he said. “And the house was undamaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Landscaping makes a difference \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next line of defense against a wildfire is the area immediately surrounding a home, what researchers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">Zone Zero\u003c/a>.” This area should have \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/zone-zero-mandates-near-completion-high-wildfire-risk-areas\">nothing combustible within it\u003c/a>. Imagine concrete sidewalks, beds of stone pebbles or gravel around the home instead of shrubs, wood mulch and wooden fences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Five feet around our homes — it’s the last place where things connect fire physically to our homes,” Giammanco said. “If we can make that noncombustible, we help break that chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Mediterranean climate means some of the state’s vegetation is flammable and is adapted to fire, according to Kolden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the most common — and also most flammable — plants Kolden sees in Californians’ yards are Italian cypress trees and juniper shrubs. Italian cypress trees can burn down quickly and spread embers through the air, igniting whatever it lands on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1604312663660502\">Juniper trees\u003c/a>, when set on fire, can become a “Roman candle” and shower flames around it. As homeowners in Southern California rebuild, Kolden, a former firefighter, hopes they will rethink planting these trees near their homes and instead choose plants that are still aesthetically pleasing, but less flammable, like succulents or flower annuals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024491\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/download-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bed of pebbles line up the front yard of Annie Barbour’s former home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. Pebbles are not flammable. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the Tubbs Fire, a wooden fence encircled Barbour’s home and acted as a wick, spreading the fire from house to house. Since then, Barbour has rebuilt much of that fence, but the last five feet — the part that touches her home — was replaced with a metal gate, which can stop the flame from reaching her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her neighbors still have wooden fences that touch their homes, but after seeing Barbour’s gate, some have asked her for quotes on how much it might cost to make that change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My home is paid off, I don’t need to lose it again, so I’ll do whatever I can do,” she said. “It would be really ridiculous for me to not set an example.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250123_RebuildingAfterWildfire_GC-13-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A 5-foot metal gate which separates Annie Barbour’s former home from the neighbor’s home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 23, 2025. The metal gate breaks the spread of a wildfire to the home. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But a house is still a home, and there are certain changes Barbour knows she needs to make to ensure hers is wildfire-resistant. Though, it doesn’t mean those changes are any less painful to enact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, a Japanese maple tree sits in her backyard, a gift a friend gave her after she rebuilt her home. Its branches and brightly colored leaves touch her home’s back wall, closest to the primary bedroom. She knows she will have to cut it down eventually, but she said it will hurt. She recently cut down a blooming wisteria vine on her boyfriend’s property to make it more fire-safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was beautiful, and he was like ‘I’ve trained that for years, it’s one of my happiest features when I come around in the garage, and it is draped around the porch,’” she said. “We finally came to a meeting of minds, and he stayed inside while I hacked it down. It was very hard for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Building back your community\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many homes in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu that were destroyed in the fires were in an area fire experts call the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace\">According to Cal Fire\u003c/a>, one of the most effective ways to mitigate wildfires is to create a large “defensible space” of clean, noncombustible materials 100 feet around a home.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The homes rebuilt there should not only use wildfire-focused building codes to ensure it can meaningfully resist fire, Giammanco said, but should be spaced farther apart from each other, especially if they are within 10 feet of their neighbor’s house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key is to make sure the outer ring of structures that butt up against where the wildfire is going to enter that community have as much protection as we can give them,” he said. “It allows us to use almost a perimeter defense working our way inward where we could allow dense construction because we’ve got really good provisions and protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Coffey Park, a cement wall runs along the back of Barbour’s property and the other homes along her street, which is parallel to a busy thoroughfare. This type of wall is commonplace in suburbs across the country. California has spent more than any other state — over \u003ca href=\"https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_barriers/inventory/graphs/graph01.cfm\">$1 billion since 1963\u003c/a> — to construct these walls, which block sound pollution from highways and busy roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the fire, Coffey Park’s wall had a wooden beam running along the top of it, which spread the flames across the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12024478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12024478\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"833\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-800x267.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1020x340.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-2048x682.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Copy-of-KQED-side-by-side-downpage-image_2-1920x640.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A hopper wall, seen from Annie Barbour’s former home, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. Right: A hopper wall along Hopper St. in Santa Rosa, built to block out the sound from the busy road, is also fire-resistant, on Jan. 23, 2025. In the inside of the wall is a metal cage with styrofoam inside, supported by rebar and cement, then covered with concrete which makes the wall more fire-resistant than a simple concrete wall. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But these walls, if constructed with fire resistant materials, can also act as a barrier against oncoming flames. Coffey Park’s wall was rebuilt with styrofoam supported by rebar and cement, encased in a metal cage and concrete. Those materials, assembled by the building company\u003ca href=\"https://www.rsg3d.com/\"> RSG-3\u003c/a>, make the wall more fire resistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California, and the rest of the world, grapples with the increasingly damaging impacts of climate change, Kolden said the state cannot afford to design its cities the same way it has for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are places that were predominantly built during an era of really different approaches to building communities — more suburban tracts of cookie-cutter housing was the norm,” she said. “What Altadena and Pacific Palisades have right now is an opportunity to say, ‘Alright, we have a blank slate with a lot of stakeholders, and every parcel owner is a stakeholder in the future.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"headline": "An Economist Who Survived a Wildfire Is Now Taking on California's Insurance Crisis",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/726239784/greg-rosalsky\">Greg Rosalsky\u003c/a>, NPR",
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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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"title": "Aerial Attack Helps Firefighters Stop Spread of Huge Blaze North of Los Angeles",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 4 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evacuation orders were lifted Thursday for tens of thousands of people as firefighters with air support slowed the spread of a huge wildfire churning through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles where dangerous winds gained strength again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hughes Fire \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-300bac5d21394adf9d44493c4ccd337b\">broke out late Wednesday morning\u003c/a> and, in less than a day, had charred nearly 10,000 acres of trees and brush near Castaic Lake, 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 have been burning for more than two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no growth overnight, and crews were jumping on flareups to keep the flames within containment lines, fire spokesperson Jeremy Ruiz said Thursday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had helicopters dropping water until around 3 a.m. That kept it in check,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=13f73646f68948f09b608050136e96bd\" width=\"1000\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/22/hughes-fire/\">Containment of the fire reached 24%\u003c/a> as of Thursday afternoon. Nearly 54,000 residents in the Castaic area were still under evacuation warnings, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday. There were no reports of homes or other structures burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/\">two new fires\u003c/a> were reported Thursday in the San Diego area. Evacuations were ordered after the Gilman Fire erupted in brush near densely populated neighborhoods north of downtown in La Jolla, not far from the UC San Diego School of Medicine campus. Southeast of downtown, the Border Fire was quickly spreading through a mountainous area of the Otay Mountain Wilderness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in Ventura County, a new fire briefly prompted the evacuation of California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo. Water-dropping helicopters made quick progress against the Laguna Fire that erupted in hills above the campus, where about 7,000 students are enrolled. The evacuation order was later downgraded to a warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the region was under a red flag warning for critical fire risk, winds were not as strong as they had been when the Palisades and Eaton fires broke out, allowing for firefighting aircraft to dump tens of thousands of gallons of \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-fire-suppressant-retardant-ce138f475de856a72eb61ce03af23060\">fire retardant\u003c/a> on the Hughes Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Red flag warnings were extended through Friday morning in L.A. and Ventura counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parts of Interstate 5 near the Hughes Fire that had been closed reopened Wednesday evening.\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>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=57a6f1241aaa49b4b0e3dac2a91b981d\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\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\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>Closer to Los Angeles, residents in Sherman Oaks received an evacuation warning on Wednesday night after a brush fire broke out on the Sepulveda Pass near the I-405 Freeway. The blaze was first reported just after 11 p.m., but the Los Angeles Fire Department said Thursday that forward progress had been stopped at about 40 acres (16 hectares), and the evacuation warning was lifted. No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported, fire officials said, but firefighters remained at the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/KTLA/status/1882257766699655297\u003cbr>\nThe low humidity, bone-dry vegetation and strong winds came as firefighters continued battling the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-3a20ed3149cfeebd91dd462fb64ebb51\">Palisades and Eaton fires\u003c/a>. Officials remained concerned that those fires could break their \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-terms-contained-acc21dd0f6824df715caff1e46918eda\">containment\u003c/a> lines as firefighters continued watching for hot spots. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 72%, and the Eaton Fire was at 95%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Palisades and Eaton fires 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 on Jan. 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"more on the la fires\" tag=\"los-angeles-fires\"]L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said Wednesday his department was still investigating 22 active missing person reports in both fire zones. All reported missing are adults, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of the weekend, Los Angeles officials were \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">preparing 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 weather service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California fires have overall caused at least $28 billion in insured damage and probably a little more in uninsured damage, according to Karen Clark and Company, a disaster modeling firm known for accurate post-catastrophe damage assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the heels of that assessment, California Republicans are \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-conditional-aid-washington-trump-johnson-12c779b96e04d564802d4d06348aa0fc\">pushing back\u003c/a> against suggestions by President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and others that federal disaster aid for victims of wildfires should come with strings attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Legislature on Thursday approved a more than \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fire-relief-newsom-la-special-session-ab1e62d70198b5a7086e77932da93be9\">$2.5 billion fire relief package\u003c/a>, in part to help the Los Angeles area recover from the fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump plans to travel to the state to see the damage firsthand Friday, but it wasn’t clear whether he and \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/gavin-newsom-democrat-fire-president-politics-ec1c7c6ecb558583aa548f190822940d\">Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> will meet during the visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Maps by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 4 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evacuation orders were lifted Thursday for tens of thousands of people as firefighters with air support slowed the spread of a huge wildfire churning through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles where dangerous winds gained strength again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hughes Fire \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-300bac5d21394adf9d44493c4ccd337b\">broke out late Wednesday morning\u003c/a> and, in less than a day, had charred nearly 10,000 acres of trees and brush near Castaic Lake, 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 have been burning for more than two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no growth overnight, and crews were jumping on flareups to keep the flames within containment lines, fire spokesperson Jeremy Ruiz said Thursday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had helicopters dropping water until around 3 a.m. That kept it in check,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=13f73646f68948f09b608050136e96bd\" width=\"1000\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/22/hughes-fire/\">Containment of the fire reached 24%\u003c/a> as of Thursday afternoon. Nearly 54,000 residents in the Castaic area were still under evacuation warnings, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday. There were no reports of homes or other structures burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/\">two new fires\u003c/a> were reported Thursday in the San Diego area. Evacuations were ordered after the Gilman Fire erupted in brush near densely populated neighborhoods north of downtown in La Jolla, not far from the UC San Diego School of Medicine campus. Southeast of downtown, the Border Fire was quickly spreading through a mountainous area of the Otay Mountain Wilderness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in Ventura County, a new fire briefly prompted the evacuation of California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo. Water-dropping helicopters made quick progress against the Laguna Fire that erupted in hills above the campus, where about 7,000 students are enrolled. The evacuation order was later downgraded to a warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the region was under a red flag warning for critical fire risk, winds were not as strong as they had been when the Palisades and Eaton fires broke out, allowing for firefighting aircraft to dump tens of thousands of gallons of \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-fire-suppressant-retardant-ce138f475de856a72eb61ce03af23060\">fire retardant\u003c/a> on the Hughes Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Red flag warnings were extended through Friday morning in L.A. and Ventura counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parts of Interstate 5 near the Hughes Fire that had been closed reopened Wednesday evening.\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>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=57a6f1241aaa49b4b0e3dac2a91b981d\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\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\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>Closer to Los Angeles, residents in Sherman Oaks received an evacuation warning on Wednesday night after a brush fire broke out on the Sepulveda Pass near the I-405 Freeway. The blaze was first reported just after 11 p.m., but the Los Angeles Fire Department said Thursday that forward progress had been stopped at about 40 acres (16 hectares), and the evacuation warning was lifted. No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported, fire officials said, but firefighters remained at the scene.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\nThe low humidity, bone-dry vegetation and strong winds came as firefighters continued battling the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-california-wildfires-3a20ed3149cfeebd91dd462fb64ebb51\">Palisades and Eaton fires\u003c/a>. Officials remained concerned that those fires could break their \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-terms-contained-acc21dd0f6824df715caff1e46918eda\">containment\u003c/a> lines as firefighters continued watching for hot spots. Containment of the Palisades Fire reached 72%, and the Eaton Fire was at 95%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Palisades and Eaton fires 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 on Jan. 7.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said Wednesday his department was still investigating 22 active missing person reports in both fire zones. All reported missing are adults, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahead of the weekend, Los Angeles officials were \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fires-los-angeles-winds-red-flag-warnings-5e599783ebd34a446e5b6690e0ecc777\">preparing 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 weather service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California fires have overall caused at least $28 billion in insured damage and probably a little more in uninsured damage, according to Karen Clark and Company, a disaster modeling firm known for accurate post-catastrophe damage assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the heels of that assessment, California Republicans are \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-conditional-aid-washington-trump-johnson-12c779b96e04d564802d4d06348aa0fc\">pushing back\u003c/a> against suggestions by President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and others that federal disaster aid for victims of wildfires should come with strings attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Legislature on Thursday approved a more than \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-fire-relief-newsom-la-special-session-ab1e62d70198b5a7086e77932da93be9\">$2.5 billion fire relief package\u003c/a>, in part to help the Los Angeles area recover from the fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump plans to travel to the state to see the damage firsthand Friday, but it wasn’t clear whether he and \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/gavin-newsom-democrat-fire-president-politics-ec1c7c6ecb558583aa548f190822940d\">Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> will meet during the visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Maps by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Over 50,000 Under Evacuation Orders or Warnings as Wildfire Imperils Homes North of Los Angeles",
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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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"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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"slug": "private-firefighters-are-increasingly-popular-with-insurers-but-do-they-pose-a-risk",
"title": "Private Firefighters Are Increasingly Popular With Insurers. But Do They Pose a Risk?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Robert MacKenzie is an assistant fire chief — but not the kind who works for your local fire department. As the Palisades Fire bore down on Southern California last week, the private fire crew he oversees headed out to help defend homes for their customers: insurance companies that offer wildfire protection to wealthy homeowners and others with the coverage built into their policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working with lists of high-risk properties provided by insurers, the team from Capstone Fire and Safety Management aims to arrive at houses before a fire does, then make changes to the structure that will give it the best chance of survival. If a fire is getting close, they’ll smear a fire-protective gel on the side of the home, then get out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the windows are open, maybe we can close them. If there’s a woodpile that’s too close to the home, we can move it,” said MacKenzie, who ran an in-house fire department for Southern California Edison before coming to work for Capstone. “Ninety percent of what we do is prevention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Capstone is part of a growing and controversial ecosystem of private firefighting companies that have seen themselves thrust into the spotlight as some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles have gone up in flames. It includes firefighters directly contracted with government agencies as well as those who work for insurance companies and directly for rich families and developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California faces a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/dry-danger-zone-california-fires-climate-change/\">future of more frequent and severe firestorms\u003c/a>, the current fires have made clear that private companies are one way insurers and homeowners will respond to that threat. They’ve also posed the question of how the state should regulate private firefighters and how they should communicate with the public firefighting agencies leading disaster response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Capstone’s clients is Pure Insurance, a boutique firm that advertises its services to high-net-worth individuals with luxury homes and art collections. But mainstream insurers are also offering wildfire defense services to their customers, typically included in the cost of their premium. Insurers that have contracted with fire defense companies include \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-now-offering-added-wildfire-protection-in-california-arizona-washington/\">State Farm\u003c/a>, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/home-insurance-state-farm-fair-plan-20032542.php\">holds the most residential policies\u003c/a> in the area covered by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, according to a \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurers’ use of private firefighters “started years ago with some of the high-net-worth insurance carriers, but it’s moved into the standard market as well,” said Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry association. “It is really part of the landscape now. And even average homeowners are really taking a look at their risk way more than they used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the Kardashians,” agreed Matthew Wara, director of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program, referring to the time Kim and Kanye infamously used a private squad to \u003ca href=\"https://www.tmz.com/2018/11/12/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-save-neighborhood-fire-hire-private-team/\">protect their mansion\u003c/a> from the Woolsey Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts note that private firefighting is nothing new, dating back to the 1700s, before Benjamin Franklin co-founded the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer fire service organized to defend the whole community and not just its members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But critics have skewered the private companies as creating a two-tiered system where those with more resources get better protection than everyone else. After billionaire developer Rick Caruso \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/us/private-firefighters-la-wildfires.html\">hired private crews to defend his Palisades Village mall\u003c/a>, backlash spread on social media as images circulated of pristine chain stores with water trucks parked outside alongside burnt-out ruins of homes and small businesses. Caruso later pledged a $5 million donation to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2018 California law requires private firefighters arriving in an evacuation zone to check in with the local incident commander and follow any of their instructions, including leaving the scene when asked. They’re not allowed to use the same radio frequency as government firefighters to communicate with each other, must mark their vehicles as “nonemergency” and avoid using sirens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That law doesn’t prevent private firefighters from hooking up to public fire hydrants — though representatives for both the fire companies and the state’s fire protection department, Cal Fire, said they typically bring their own water trucks or connect to homeowners’ hydrants. It’s a sensitive issue because \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-14/los-angeles-city-council-seeks-transparency-on-empty-reservoir-dry-hydrants\">some hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry early\u003c/a> last week as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who authored the 2018 law, said in a statement to CalMatters that it was sparked by previous wildfire seasons in 2007 and 2017 in which private firefighters entered disaster zones without coordinating with their public counterparts, confusing residents and distracting emergency responders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public thought the private firefighters were public firefighters, which gave a false sense of security that there was emergency response in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Private firefighters were going into evacuation areas without prior authorization. In a couple of (instances) they had to be rescued, which put emergency personnel at risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022998\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022998\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home burns during the Palisades Fire near Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles, on Jan. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Ted Soqui for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aguiar-Curry said fire agencies are evaluating the effectiveness of the law as the Los Angeles fires unfold to see if any changes need to be made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurers, who are likely staring down tens of billions of dollars in liability from the Los Angeles fires, have been willing to spend on wildfire defense in order to avoid the more costly loss of insured property. A contracted rate for private firefighters to visit a home and take preventive measures as a fire approaches can run about $1,000, said Mark Sektnan, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, another industry group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MacKenzie said Capstone is made up largely of retired firefighters and younger employees trying to gain the experience they need to be hired by a fire service. During the off-season, they visit insurers’ customers and give them tips on how to fire-harden their properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they’re on site at a fire, he said, they try to know their limits, sticking to the jobs that emergency responders might not have time to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want to become part of the incident and create more havoc for the responding agencies,” he said. “If there are small spot fires, like an ember coming from half a mile away, we’ll extinguish that. But if that fire is coming up the canyon at a rapid rate, we typically gel the side of the exposed home and we’ll leave and make sure our folks are safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has visited more than 2,000 homes during the current Los Angeles firestorm, said MacKenzie, fielding a team of 16 engines with 34 people at the height of their operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another company widely used by insurers, Wildfire Defense Systems, says it has responded to 1,400 wildfires since 2008 and has a 99% success rate in saving structures if it arrives on scene in time to prepare the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The people that actually have to put money at risk in these situations are insurance companies and reinsurance companies, so I think it’s important to look at what they think is effective,” said Wara, the Stanford researcher. “They think (home hardening by private firefighters) is highly effective and want to see more of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key question, said Wara, is whether private firefighters hired by insurers can get to a fire scene fast enough and whether they’re admitted by the on-site commander. He said he’d heard from private firefighting crews who attempted to enter the Palisades Fire zone and were turned away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Captain Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire on the Palisades Fire, said he couldn’t confirm whether private crews had been denied permission to enter, but that if they were, it was for their own safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike private firefighters who are contracted directly with Cal Fire, fire crews who work for insurers or homeowners may not have the same training as regular firefighters, Collins said. Some fire departments, for example, require firefighters to be trained as paramedics.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12021720,news_12021019,science_1993316\"]“There’s no way for us as professional firefighters to vet their training, or their personal protective equipment,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private firefighters are also not communicating on the same system or always briefed on the overall plan for tackling the fire, he said. “It makes things harder if we’re in a dynamic fire situation and we drive by some unknown type engine and we can’t get a hold of them or advise them of danger or something happening. It creates a potentially dangerous situation for those people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one wants to take on that liability,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the more than 5,000 people fighting the Palisades Fire, Collins said Cal Fire had contracted one private fire engine with a four-person crew. They were previously vetted by Cal Fire and report to a Cal Fire supervisor, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Firefighting resources that prevent the destruction of a residence are helpful on incidents like these, with an emphasis on coordination and accountability,” Cal Fire added in a statement provided after publication. The agency said it had worked with private companies to improve coordination over the past few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will the private firefighting sector continue to grow? Ken Sebastiani directs the fire technology program at Santa Rosa Junior College, where about 1,200 students pass through each semester, many inspired to work in fire prevention by personal experience in the Tubbs, Glass and Carr fires, which ravaged the wine country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t see many go on to private firefighting companies, he said; most want to work for Cal Fire or municipal departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he described the existence of private firefighting as a sign that with wildfire danger increasing, it’s all hands on deck. “It’s a global challenge, the need for firefighters, because of climate change,” he said. “It’s happening everywhere — Greece, Italy — so it’s not just California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until Mother Nature slows down, it’s really hard for the fire departments to catch up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Private firefighters are a growing part of insurance companies’ strategy to head off wildfire-related damages. But Cal Fire says they can sometimes pose a safety risk.",
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"title": "Private Firefighters Are Increasingly Popular With Insurers. But Do They Pose a Risk? | KQED",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/feliciacalmatters-org/\">Felicia Mello\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Robert MacKenzie is an assistant fire chief — but not the kind who works for your local fire department. As the Palisades Fire bore down on Southern California last week, the private fire crew he oversees headed out to help defend homes for their customers: insurance companies that offer wildfire protection to wealthy homeowners and others with the coverage built into their policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working with lists of high-risk properties provided by insurers, the team from Capstone Fire and Safety Management aims to arrive at houses before a fire does, then make changes to the structure that will give it the best chance of survival. If a fire is getting close, they’ll smear a fire-protective gel on the side of the home, then get out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the windows are open, maybe we can close them. If there’s a woodpile that’s too close to the home, we can move it,” said MacKenzie, who ran an in-house fire department for Southern California Edison before coming to work for Capstone. “Ninety percent of what we do is prevention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Capstone is part of a growing and controversial ecosystem of private firefighting companies that have seen themselves thrust into the spotlight as some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles have gone up in flames. It includes firefighters directly contracted with government agencies as well as those who work for insurance companies and directly for rich families and developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As California faces a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/dry-danger-zone-california-fires-climate-change/\">future of more frequent and severe firestorms\u003c/a>, the current fires have made clear that private companies are one way insurers and homeowners will respond to that threat. They’ve also posed the question of how the state should regulate private firefighters and how they should communicate with the public firefighting agencies leading disaster response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Capstone’s clients is Pure Insurance, a boutique firm that advertises its services to high-net-worth individuals with luxury homes and art collections. But mainstream insurers are also offering wildfire defense services to their customers, typically included in the cost of their premium. Insurers that have contracted with fire defense companies include \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-now-offering-added-wildfire-protection-in-california-arizona-washington/\">State Farm\u003c/a>, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/home-insurance-state-farm-fair-plan-20032542.php\">holds the most residential policies\u003c/a> in the area covered by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, according to a \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurers’ use of private firefighters “started years ago with some of the high-net-worth insurance carriers, but it’s moved into the standard market as well,” said Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry association. “It is really part of the landscape now. And even average homeowners are really taking a look at their risk way more than they used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the Kardashians,” agreed Matthew Wara, director of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program, referring to the time Kim and Kanye infamously used a private squad to \u003ca href=\"https://www.tmz.com/2018/11/12/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-save-neighborhood-fire-hire-private-team/\">protect their mansion\u003c/a> from the Woolsey Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts note that private firefighting is nothing new, dating back to the 1700s, before Benjamin Franklin co-founded the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer fire service organized to defend the whole community and not just its members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But critics have skewered the private companies as creating a two-tiered system where those with more resources get better protection than everyone else. After billionaire developer Rick Caruso \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/us/private-firefighters-la-wildfires.html\">hired private crews to defend his Palisades Village mall\u003c/a>, backlash spread on social media as images circulated of pristine chain stores with water trucks parked outside alongside burnt-out ruins of homes and small businesses. Caruso later pledged a $5 million donation to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2018 California law requires private firefighters arriving in an evacuation zone to check in with the local incident commander and follow any of their instructions, including leaving the scene when asked. They’re not allowed to use the same radio frequency as government firefighters to communicate with each other, must mark their vehicles as “nonemergency” and avoid using sirens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That law doesn’t prevent private firefighters from hooking up to public fire hydrants — though representatives for both the fire companies and the state’s fire protection department, Cal Fire, said they typically bring their own water trucks or connect to homeowners’ hydrants. It’s a sensitive issue because \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-14/los-angeles-city-council-seeks-transparency-on-empty-reservoir-dry-hydrants\">some hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry early\u003c/a> last week as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who authored the 2018 law, said in a statement to CalMatters that it was sparked by previous wildfire seasons in 2007 and 2017 in which private firefighters entered disaster zones without coordinating with their public counterparts, confusing residents and distracting emergency responders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The public thought the private firefighters were public firefighters, which gave a false sense of security that there was emergency response in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Private firefighters were going into evacuation areas without prior authorization. In a couple of (instances) they had to be rescued, which put emergency personnel at risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022998\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022998\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010725_PalisadesFire_TS_CM_017-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home burns during the Palisades Fire near Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles, on Jan. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Ted Soqui for CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aguiar-Curry said fire agencies are evaluating the effectiveness of the law as the Los Angeles fires unfold to see if any changes need to be made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurers, who are likely staring down tens of billions of dollars in liability from the Los Angeles fires, have been willing to spend on wildfire defense in order to avoid the more costly loss of insured property. A contracted rate for private firefighters to visit a home and take preventive measures as a fire approaches can run about $1,000, said Mark Sektnan, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, another industry group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MacKenzie said Capstone is made up largely of retired firefighters and younger employees trying to gain the experience they need to be hired by a fire service. During the off-season, they visit insurers’ customers and give them tips on how to fire-harden their properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they’re on site at a fire, he said, they try to know their limits, sticking to the jobs that emergency responders might not have time to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t want to become part of the incident and create more havoc for the responding agencies,” he said. “If there are small spot fires, like an ember coming from half a mile away, we’ll extinguish that. But if that fire is coming up the canyon at a rapid rate, we typically gel the side of the exposed home and we’ll leave and make sure our folks are safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has visited more than 2,000 homes during the current Los Angeles firestorm, said MacKenzie, fielding a team of 16 engines with 34 people at the height of their operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another company widely used by insurers, Wildfire Defense Systems, says it has responded to 1,400 wildfires since 2008 and has a 99% success rate in saving structures if it arrives on scene in time to prepare the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The people that actually have to put money at risk in these situations are insurance companies and reinsurance companies, so I think it’s important to look at what they think is effective,” said Wara, the Stanford researcher. “They think (home hardening by private firefighters) is highly effective and want to see more of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key question, said Wara, is whether private firefighters hired by insurers can get to a fire scene fast enough and whether they’re admitted by the on-site commander. He said he’d heard from private firefighting crews who attempted to enter the Palisades Fire zone and were turned away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Captain Dan Collins, a spokesperson for Cal Fire on the Palisades Fire, said he couldn’t confirm whether private crews had been denied permission to enter, but that if they were, it was for their own safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike private firefighters who are contracted directly with Cal Fire, fire crews who work for insurers or homeowners may not have the same training as regular firefighters, Collins said. Some fire departments, for example, require firefighters to be trained as paramedics.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There’s no way for us as professional firefighters to vet their training, or their personal protective equipment,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private firefighters are also not communicating on the same system or always briefed on the overall plan for tackling the fire, he said. “It makes things harder if we’re in a dynamic fire situation and we drive by some unknown type engine and we can’t get a hold of them or advise them of danger or something happening. It creates a potentially dangerous situation for those people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one wants to take on that liability,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the more than 5,000 people fighting the Palisades Fire, Collins said Cal Fire had contracted one private fire engine with a four-person crew. They were previously vetted by Cal Fire and report to a Cal Fire supervisor, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Firefighting resources that prevent the destruction of a residence are helpful on incidents like these, with an emphasis on coordination and accountability,” Cal Fire added in a statement provided after publication. The agency said it had worked with private companies to improve coordination over the past few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will the private firefighting sector continue to grow? Ken Sebastiani directs the fire technology program at Santa Rosa Junior College, where about 1,200 students pass through each semester, many inspired to work in fire prevention by personal experience in the Tubbs, Glass and Carr fires, which ravaged the wine country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t see many go on to private firefighting companies, he said; most want to work for Cal Fire or municipal departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he described the existence of private firefighting as a sign that with wildfire danger increasing, it’s all hands on deck. “It’s a global challenge, the need for firefighters, because of climate change,” he said. “It’s happening everywhere — Greece, Italy — so it’s not just California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until Mother Nature slows down, it’s really hard for the fire departments to catch up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "PG&E Says It May Have Started Yet Another Major Northern California Wildfire in June",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> equipment may have ignited a large wildfire in Colusa County that burned more than 19,000 acres at the start of the summer, the utility told state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/wildfire_updates/2024/11/2024-11-25-EIR.pdf\">filing \u003c/a>with the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E said its system experienced an outage around 1:26 p.m. on June 17 near where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/6/17/sites-fire\">Sites Fire\u003c/a> started. Cal Fire said the blaze began around 19 minutes later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A worker sent to the scene of the electricity disruption on a distribution circuit near the community of Stonyford found part of a tree had fallen on what was then a de-energized power line, according to PG&E’s filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sites Fire would burn for more than a week before it was fully contained, turning into California’s ninth-largest wildfire this year and the largest for the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, according to state fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its peak, close to 2,250 firefighters worked the blaze. It led to a series of evacuation orders and warnings, and it sent \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2024/aqadvisory_240618_2024_025-pdf.pdf?rev=993001201a5a4f338426dccacfaace50&sc_lang=en\">smoke \u003c/a>into parts of Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the fire burned a large amount of land, it did not injure anyone and did not destroy homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said it released a preliminary report on the incident this week because it received a claim that the fire had caused more than $50,000 in damage to fencing in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire would not say whether it’s investigating PG&E’s equipment as the cause of the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our investigation into the cause of the Sites Fire remains open, so we cannot comment on that report or the determination of the fire’s cause until our investigation has concluded,” Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay said in an email on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has come under scrutiny for starting several large wildfires in California over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747485/cal-fires-official-finding-pge-equipment-touched-off-camp-fire\">Butte County’s 2018 Camp Fire\u003c/a>, the deadliest in state history, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11881837/why-it-took-pge-9-5-hours-to-get-to-the-scene-where-dixie-fire-started\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> in the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s largest single wildland blaze ever. Both led to criminal prosecutions against PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12015942 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/01/PowerPGEMissionDist-1020x666.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11824596/pge-pleads-guilty-to-84-deaths-in-wildfire-that-destroyed-paradise\">pleaded guilty\u003c/a> to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp Fire, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910835/pge-reaches-55-million-deal-to-avoid-criminal-prosecution-in-counties-ravaged-by-recent-wildfires\">agreed to a civil settlement\u003c/a> of charges in the Dixie Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A representative for the Colusa County district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CPUC spokesperson said the agency’s role in this kind of incident is not to determine a fire’s cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a utility reports an electric incident potentially associated with a wildfire, CPUC staff perform site visits and collect data to assess if the utility violated any CPUC or state rules and regulations,” the commission’s Terrie Prosper said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PG&E representative reached for comment on the Sites Fire acknowledged the outage but gave no further details about the incident, other than to outline steps the utility has taken to reduce wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company spokesperson Matt Nauman noted that the utility is working to place hundreds of miles of power lines underground and continues to turn off power during windy and dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we have made real and significant progress in driving down wildfire risk, wildfires remain a serious threat to the safety of our state and our customers. We remain focused on working every day to end catastrophic wildfires,” Nauman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In a new filing with California regulators, PG&E noted an outage near where the Sites Fire started in June. A worker found part of a tree had fallen on a power line.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pge\">PG&E\u003c/a> equipment may have ignited a large wildfire in Colusa County that burned more than 19,000 acres at the start of the summer, the utility told state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a new \u003ca href=\"https://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/wildfire_updates/2024/11/2024-11-25-EIR.pdf\">filing \u003c/a>with the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E said its system experienced an outage around 1:26 p.m. on June 17 near where the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/6/17/sites-fire\">Sites Fire\u003c/a> started. Cal Fire said the blaze began around 19 minutes later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A worker sent to the scene of the electricity disruption on a distribution circuit near the community of Stonyford found part of a tree had fallen on what was then a de-energized power line, according to PG&E’s filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sites Fire would burn for more than a week before it was fully contained, turning into California’s ninth-largest wildfire this year and the largest for the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, according to state fire officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its peak, close to 2,250 firefighters worked the blaze. It led to a series of evacuation orders and warnings, and it sent \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2024/aqadvisory_240618_2024_025-pdf.pdf?rev=993001201a5a4f338426dccacfaace50&sc_lang=en\">smoke \u003c/a>into parts of Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the fire burned a large amount of land, it did not injure anyone and did not destroy homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said it released a preliminary report on the incident this week because it received a claim that the fire had caused more than $50,000 in damage to fencing in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire would not say whether it’s investigating PG&E’s equipment as the cause of the blaze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our investigation into the cause of the Sites Fire remains open, so we cannot comment on that report or the determination of the fire’s cause until our investigation has concluded,” Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay said in an email on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E has come under scrutiny for starting several large wildfires in California over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents include \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747485/cal-fires-official-finding-pge-equipment-touched-off-camp-fire\">Butte County’s 2018 Camp Fire\u003c/a>, the deadliest in state history, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11881837/why-it-took-pge-9-5-hours-to-get-to-the-scene-where-dixie-fire-started\">the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> in the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s largest single wildland blaze ever. Both led to criminal prosecutions against PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11824596/pge-pleads-guilty-to-84-deaths-in-wildfire-that-destroyed-paradise\">pleaded guilty\u003c/a> to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp Fire, and it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11910835/pge-reaches-55-million-deal-to-avoid-criminal-prosecution-in-counties-ravaged-by-recent-wildfires\">agreed to a civil settlement\u003c/a> of charges in the Dixie Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A representative for the Colusa County district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CPUC spokesperson said the agency’s role in this kind of incident is not to determine a fire’s cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a utility reports an electric incident potentially associated with a wildfire, CPUC staff perform site visits and collect data to assess if the utility violated any CPUC or state rules and regulations,” the commission’s Terrie Prosper said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A PG&E representative reached for comment on the Sites Fire acknowledged the outage but gave no further details about the incident, other than to outline steps the utility has taken to reduce wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company spokesperson Matt Nauman noted that the utility is working to place hundreds of miles of power lines underground and continues to turn off power during windy and dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we have made real and significant progress in driving down wildfire risk, wildfires remain a serious threat to the safety of our state and our customers. We remain focused on working every day to end catastrophic wildfires,” Nauman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "toilet-paper-and-flat-tires-the-strange-ways-that-californians-ignite-wildfires",
"title": "Flat Tires and Toilet Paper: Bizarre Human Flubs Are at the Root of Most Big Wildfires in California",
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"content": "\u003cp>Of all the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/park-fire-california-wildfires/\">insidious threats faced by wildland firefighters\u003c/a> — extreme heat, desiccated forests, unpredictable fire behavior and a nearly year-round fire season — what might be the most fearsome?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People do dangerous things, things that start \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/category/environment/wildfires/\">wildfires.\u003c/a> Pushing a burning car into a gully. Mowing the lawn on a hot summer day. Mis-wiring a hot tub. Driving cars with flat tires. Burning toilet paper rather than packing it out of a campsite. Setting off smoke bombs at gender reveal parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hot, dry conditions already primed for fire, people’s actions can quickly escalate from a harmless mistake — such as hammering a metal stake into the parched ground — to igniting a blaze that kills a firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People — whether purposeful, reckless or simply careless — are responsible for about 95% of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-wildfire-map-tracker/\">California’s wildfires\u003c/a>. Last year alone, people caused \u003ca href=\"https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/human-caused\">more than 7,000 wildfires\u003c/a> in California; nationally, it was more than 50,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Humans are incredibly predictable,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuna said. “They drag chains, and they leave campfires to burn or they have a flat tire but think they can \u003cem>juuust \u003c/em>make it to the next exit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s people not using appropriate judgment,” he added. “They are not looking at what they are doing and whether or not it’s going to start a fire. I believe in the ability of humans to recognize what is not in their best interest, but people constantly prove me wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to the list the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/24/park-fire\">Park Fire\u003c/a>, a fierce fire raging across 600 square miles in four Sacramento Valley counties that is already the fifth \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-largest-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=396e3fe5db424fc39487bfa4d219cf81&hash=8529C4E1F1BC3073E31AD0337E875199\">largest in California history (PDF)\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.buttecounty.net/DocumentCenter/View/13770/July-25-2024---CHICO-MAN-ARRESTED-FOR-PARK-FIRE-ARSON---UPDATE\">Butte County authorities (PDF) \u003c/a>arrested a 42-year-old Chico man suspected of pushing a burning vehicle into a ravine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Human action, tragically, also may have caused the 57,300-acre \u003ca href=\"https://inciweb.fs2c.usda.gov/incident-information/casqf-borel-fire\">Borel Fire in Kern County\u003c/a>, which began last week on the side of Highway 178, possibly sparked when a vehicle crashed, killing the driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a summer of severe fires, with dangerous lightning storms possible in the coming weeks, authorities wish people would stop doing stupid stuff. Nature doesn’t need any help starting fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would include the man accused of driving his truck for more than four miles, minus a front tire, in Sonoma County last week. The metal scraping on the road sparked the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/24/flora-fire\">Flora Fire\u003c/a>, a small blaze east of Healdsburg. The fire was contained last Sunday and a suspect is in custody. Cal Fire lists the cause as “vehicle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A similar maneuver started the 2018 \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/7/23/carr-fire\">Carr Fire\u003c/a> near Redding. The fire, which killed three people fighting the fire and five civilians and burned nearly 230,000 acres, was ignited by a spark caused by someone driving a trailer with a flat tire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another major human cause is related to institutions — the power utilities — rather than reckless individuals. “Since 2015, \u003ca href=\"https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2021-117.pdf\">power lines (PDF)\u003c/a> have caused six of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires,” according to a 2022 report from the State Auditor’s office. \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-destructive-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=9e4974c273274858880c2dd28292a96f&hash=29E21CBFCE8D9885F606246607D21CEB\">California’s most deadly fire (PDF)\u003c/a>, the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people, was started by arcing transmission lines whipped by high winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural causes still play a significant role, especially \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/09/california-fires-lightning/\">lightning, which could become an even bigger threat due to climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-intentional-arson-is-rare-in-wildfires\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Intentional arson is rare in wildfires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arsonists purposefully setting fires is not common, accounting for about 10% of California fires, depending on the year. Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/our-impact\">111 people were arrested for arson-caused fires\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of human-caused fires fall into the unofficial category of people being knuckleheads: Folks doing something they think is safe or, absent any thinking, something they come to regret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few examples:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A smoke bomb at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/21/couple-gender-reveal-party-wildfire-charged\">gender-reveal party\u003c/a> sparked the deadly 2020 El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which killed a firefighter and cost $42 million to suppress.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A person using a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/4/french-fire\">lawnmower\u003c/a> in Mariposa County caused the French Fire on July 4.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiego.gov/fire/about/majorfires/2003cedar\">Starting a fire to signal for help\u003c/a>, a hunter inadvertently started the 2003 Cedar Fire near San Diego, which burned 280,278 acres, destroyed 2,820 buildings and killed 15 people.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2015/9/12/valley-fire\">Faulty wiring on a hot tub\u003c/a> in 2015 ignited a fire that burned for longer than a month in Lake County.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/7/16/detwiler-fire\">Weapons fired in the backcountry\u003c/a> started the 2017 Detwiler Fire, destroying 134 structures and threatening Yosemite National Park. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2008/7/25/telegraph-fire/\">The same cause in the same area\u003c/a> sparked the Telegraph Fire nine years earlier.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A homeowner attempting to install a shade cloth on his property \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/7/27/ranch-fire-mendocino-complex\">used a hammer to drive a metal stake into the ground\u003c/a>. The sparks set off the Ranch Fire, which killed a firefighter and burned more than 410,000 acres in Colusa, Glenn, Lake and Mendocino counties in 2018.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Throw into the mix: escaped Mylar balloons sparking utility lines, unattended campfires, Weedwackers, cigarette butts tossed out of car windows, trains, backyard fireworks. It’s a wonder that the state doesn’t burn down every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispatching crews to human-caused fires takes resources away from the fires that nature creates, said Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is to use common sense,” she said. “It’s important not to place blame, but if you have a flat tire and you are 500 feet from the gas station, you may want to push (the car instead.) Think about it in the bigger picture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freeman said a particular numbskull decision she’s seen is, evidently, common: backcountry campers setting fire to used toilet paper so they don’t have to pack it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-vehicles-lawn-equipment-are-leading-causes-of-wildfires\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Vehicles, lawn equipment are leading causes of wildfires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The unsung reason is parking on dry grass. It’s common,” she said. “People pull up to a river access and see all these cars parked on the same strip you are parked on. What do you do? You park there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California firefighters respond to countless brush fires every summer that were started by a hot tailpipe making contact with high and dry grasses next to a road. The flammability of grasses is so well known that even those in the fire service are on guard not to spark fires when they use or move equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can actually start fires while fighting fires,” Freeman said, noting that heavy-duty fire engines and other fire vehicles can kick up rocks and cause sparks. “You are moving your dozers to respond to a fire, you have to be very careful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave Winnacker, fire chief of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mofd.org/our-district/district-overview/fire-chief\">Moraga-Orinda Fire District\u003c/a> east of Berkeley, said human-caused fires commonly involve using equipment outdoors unsafely and vehicle accidents. His department operates a rigorous fire awareness program but sometimes education and warnings are not enough. In June, the fire district instituted a near-total \u003ca href=\"https://www.mofd.org/our-district/fuels-mitigation-fire-prevention/burn-ban-status#:~:text=What%20is%20banned%3F,or%20NG)%20outdoor%20flame%20devices.\">outdoor fire ban\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many California counties suggest mowing grass early in the day or late afternoon, but it’s not mandatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We rely on our education and spreading the word. At the end of the day, some people are going to get it and some are not,” said Andy VanSciver, public information officer for the \u003ca href=\"https://vcfd.org/fire-hazard-reduction-program-fhrp/\">Ventura County Fire Department.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Californians trigger thousands of wildfires every year with poor choices and reckless behavior. The Park Fire, ignited by a man pushing a burning car, was one.",
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"title": "Flat Tires and Toilet Paper: Bizarre Human Flubs Are at the Root of Most Big Wildfires in California | KQED",
"description": "Californians trigger thousands of wildfires every year with poor choices and reckless behavior. The Park Fire, ignited by a man pushing a burning car, was one.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Of all the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/park-fire-california-wildfires/\">insidious threats faced by wildland firefighters\u003c/a> — extreme heat, desiccated forests, unpredictable fire behavior and a nearly year-round fire season — what might be the most fearsome?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People do dangerous things, things that start \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/category/environment/wildfires/\">wildfires.\u003c/a> Pushing a burning car into a gully. Mowing the lawn on a hot summer day. Mis-wiring a hot tub. Driving cars with flat tires. Burning toilet paper rather than packing it out of a campsite. Setting off smoke bombs at gender reveal parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hot, dry conditions already primed for fire, people’s actions can quickly escalate from a harmless mistake — such as hammering a metal stake into the parched ground — to igniting a blaze that kills a firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People — whether purposeful, reckless or simply careless — are responsible for about 95% of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-wildfire-map-tracker/\">California’s wildfires\u003c/a>. Last year alone, people caused \u003ca href=\"https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/human-caused\">more than 7,000 wildfires\u003c/a> in California; nationally, it was more than 50,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Humans are incredibly predictable,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuna said. “They drag chains, and they leave campfires to burn or they have a flat tire but think they can \u003cem>juuust \u003c/em>make it to the next exit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s people not using appropriate judgment,” he added. “They are not looking at what they are doing and whether or not it’s going to start a fire. I believe in the ability of humans to recognize what is not in their best interest, but people constantly prove me wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add to the list the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/24/park-fire\">Park Fire\u003c/a>, a fierce fire raging across 600 square miles in four Sacramento Valley counties that is already the fifth \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-largest-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=396e3fe5db424fc39487bfa4d219cf81&hash=8529C4E1F1BC3073E31AD0337E875199\">largest in California history (PDF)\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.buttecounty.net/DocumentCenter/View/13770/July-25-2024---CHICO-MAN-ARRESTED-FOR-PARK-FIRE-ARSON---UPDATE\">Butte County authorities (PDF) \u003c/a>arrested a 42-year-old Chico man suspected of pushing a burning vehicle into a ravine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Human action, tragically, also may have caused the 57,300-acre \u003ca href=\"https://inciweb.fs2c.usda.gov/incident-information/casqf-borel-fire\">Borel Fire in Kern County\u003c/a>, which began last week on the side of Highway 178, possibly sparked when a vehicle crashed, killing the driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a summer of severe fires, with dangerous lightning storms possible in the coming weeks, authorities wish people would stop doing stupid stuff. Nature doesn’t need any help starting fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would include the man accused of driving his truck for more than four miles, minus a front tire, in Sonoma County last week. The metal scraping on the road sparked the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/24/flora-fire\">Flora Fire\u003c/a>, a small blaze east of Healdsburg. The fire was contained last Sunday and a suspect is in custody. Cal Fire lists the cause as “vehicle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A similar maneuver started the 2018 \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/7/23/carr-fire\">Carr Fire\u003c/a> near Redding. The fire, which killed three people fighting the fire and five civilians and burned nearly 230,000 acres, was ignited by a spark caused by someone driving a trailer with a flat tire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another major human cause is related to institutions — the power utilities — rather than reckless individuals. “Since 2015, \u003ca href=\"https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2021-117.pdf\">power lines (PDF)\u003c/a> have caused six of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires,” according to a 2022 report from the State Auditor’s office. \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/top-20-destructive-ca-wildfires.pdf?rev=9e4974c273274858880c2dd28292a96f&hash=29E21CBFCE8D9885F606246607D21CEB\">California’s most deadly fire (PDF)\u003c/a>, the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people, was started by arcing transmission lines whipped by high winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural causes still play a significant role, especially \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/09/california-fires-lightning/\">lightning, which could become an even bigger threat due to climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-intentional-arson-is-rare-in-wildfires\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Intentional arson is rare in wildfires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arsonists purposefully setting fires is not common, accounting for about 10% of California fires, depending on the year. Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/our-impact\">111 people were arrested for arson-caused fires\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of human-caused fires fall into the unofficial category of people being knuckleheads: Folks doing something they think is safe or, absent any thinking, something they come to regret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few examples:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A smoke bomb at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/21/couple-gender-reveal-party-wildfire-charged\">gender-reveal party\u003c/a> sparked the deadly 2020 El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which killed a firefighter and cost $42 million to suppress.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A person using a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/7/4/french-fire\">lawnmower\u003c/a> in Mariposa County caused the French Fire on July 4.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiego.gov/fire/about/majorfires/2003cedar\">Starting a fire to signal for help\u003c/a>, a hunter inadvertently started the 2003 Cedar Fire near San Diego, which burned 280,278 acres, destroyed 2,820 buildings and killed 15 people.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2015/9/12/valley-fire\">Faulty wiring on a hot tub\u003c/a> in 2015 ignited a fire that burned for longer than a month in Lake County.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/7/16/detwiler-fire\">Weapons fired in the backcountry\u003c/a> started the 2017 Detwiler Fire, destroying 134 structures and threatening Yosemite National Park. \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2008/7/25/telegraph-fire/\">The same cause in the same area\u003c/a> sparked the Telegraph Fire nine years earlier.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>A homeowner attempting to install a shade cloth on his property \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2018/7/27/ranch-fire-mendocino-complex\">used a hammer to drive a metal stake into the ground\u003c/a>. The sparks set off the Ranch Fire, which killed a firefighter and burned more than 410,000 acres in Colusa, Glenn, Lake and Mendocino counties in 2018.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Throw into the mix: escaped Mylar balloons sparking utility lines, unattended campfires, Weedwackers, cigarette butts tossed out of car windows, trains, backyard fireworks. It’s a wonder that the state doesn’t burn down every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dispatching crews to human-caused fires takes resources away from the fires that nature creates, said Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is to use common sense,” she said. “It’s important not to place blame, but if you have a flat tire and you are 500 feet from the gas station, you may want to push (the car instead.) Think about it in the bigger picture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Freeman said a particular numbskull decision she’s seen is, evidently, common: backcountry campers setting fire to used toilet paper so they don’t have to pack it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"h-vehicles-lawn-equipment-are-leading-causes-of-wildfires\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Vehicles, lawn equipment are leading causes of wildfires\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The unsung reason is parking on dry grass. It’s common,” she said. “People pull up to a river access and see all these cars parked on the same strip you are parked on. What do you do? You park there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California firefighters respond to countless brush fires every summer that were started by a hot tailpipe making contact with high and dry grasses next to a road. The flammability of grasses is so well known that even those in the fire service are on guard not to spark fires when they use or move equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can actually start fires while fighting fires,” Freeman said, noting that heavy-duty fire engines and other fire vehicles can kick up rocks and cause sparks. “You are moving your dozers to respond to a fire, you have to be very careful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave Winnacker, fire chief of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mofd.org/our-district/district-overview/fire-chief\">Moraga-Orinda Fire District\u003c/a> east of Berkeley, said human-caused fires commonly involve using equipment outdoors unsafely and vehicle accidents. His department operates a rigorous fire awareness program but sometimes education and warnings are not enough. In June, the fire district instituted a near-total \u003ca href=\"https://www.mofd.org/our-district/fuels-mitigation-fire-prevention/burn-ban-status#:~:text=What%20is%20banned%3F,or%20NG)%20outdoor%20flame%20devices.\">outdoor fire ban\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many California counties suggest mowing grass early in the day or late afternoon, but it’s not mandatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We rely on our education and spreading the word. At the end of the day, some people are going to get it and some are not,” said Andy VanSciver, public information officer for the \u003ca href=\"https://vcfd.org/fire-hazard-reduction-program-fhrp/\">Ventura County Fire Department.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"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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"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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"marketplace": {
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"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.",
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},
"mindshift": {
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"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>",
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5Nzk2MzI2MTEx",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
"meta": {
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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