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"headTitle": "LA Fire Chief Warned Budget Cuts Would Hurt in a Disaster. Oakland Has Heard Similar | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Weeks before the devastating fires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021203/widespread-scope-southern-california-fires-shown-satellite-images\">ravaging Los Angeles\u003c/a>, the city’s fire chief warned that funding cuts would hurt the department’s wildfire response. It’s a message that echoes in Oakland, where the Fire Department is facing massive budget reductions — and some city leaders are hoping the disaster in L.A. will be a wake-up call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted Tuesday, overwhelming firefighters and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">burning thousands of homes\u003c/a>, reports of fire budget cuts flooded online discourse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the Fire Department, according to records from the city controller’s office. Mayor Karen Bass referred to the elimination of some vacant positions as a “reset” and said she didn’t believe it affected the Fire Department’s response this week, and L.A. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s office noted that a union contract passed in November belatedly boosted the budget, going to wage increases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, as recently as December, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley warned in a memo to the board of fire commissioners that the cuts would “limit the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.” The reductions included $7 million for overtime training hours, she said, and funding for 61 civilian positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Oakland, where many are familiar with the devastation that fire can wreak in densely populated hills, severe budget cuts forced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020393/2-oakland-fire-stations-close-amid-budget-crisis-more-could-follow\">the closure of two fire stations\u003c/a> this week, in addition to one already closed for repairs. Four more could shutter next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020360\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020360\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Department Station 28 on Jan. 5, 2025, is one of two stations scheduled to close until June. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fire officials in the city say the cuts would decimate Oakland’s ability to protect itself from future blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Closing four more firehouses would be the end of fire protection as we know it in Oakland,” said Councilmember Zac Unger, who worked as a city firefighter until retiring from the role 10 days ago to take his council seat. “There is no way to close seven firehouses and not have devastating impacts on both the citizens and on firefighter safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unger, along with Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, said the City Council was working to restore fire services. Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, whose district includes one of the shuttered fire stations, said officials hoped to keep the closures “as brief as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12021125 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_7960-1020x764.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the final decision isn’t the council’s to make. When it approved then-Mayor Sheng Thao’s budget in July, the council gave budget administrator Bradley Johnson permission to select from a menu of cuts under \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12018688/oakland-broad-cuts-public-safety-city-agencies-amid-massive-deficit\">a contingency plan triggered in December\u003c/a> by the stalled sale of Oakland’s stake in the Coliseum. Johnson moved forward with $5.5 million in fire cuts. The second phase, expected to save $7 million more, could begin in February, and station closures could last the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stations shuttered Monday are two of the closest to the hills, where many residents are still terrified by memories of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11893199/the-oakland-hills-fire-transformed-firefighting-along-a-citys-edge-in-california\">1991 Oakland Hills firestorm\u003c/a>. The Tunnel Fire, as it was officially known, was one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/about-us/stories/oakland-hills-firestorm-forward\">most destructive\u003c/a> in California’s history. After a small fire broke out on private land, 70 mph winds caused flames to rip through the hills, burning houses and cars. More than 4,500 firefighters from across Northern California responded to the fire, which destroyed nearly 3,500 homes and killed 25 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seth Olyer, president of the Oakland firefighters union, had a dire message this week for residents around shuttered Fire Stations 25 and 28, near Joaquin Miller Park and the Lake Chabot golf course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chabot Park, Sequoia, Noland Park, Joaquin Miller, Oakmoor, Skyline, Grass Valley, Woodminster, Lincoln Highlands and Crestmont — hear this clearly: if you live in any of those neighborhoods, be aware that you’ll be waiting a very long time for help,” Olyer said Monday on the steps of City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You will not quickly have firefighter paramedics to help you or your family, and what could have been a small blaze or a small fire near your house will become a conflagration, leaving tragedy in its wake,” he continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olyer said that if all of the cuts go through, closing nearly 30% of the city’s 28 stations, firefighters wouldn’t be able to respond to a fire like October’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010151/oakland-fire-spreads-to-nearby-homes-amid-dry-windy-conditions\">Keller Fire\u003c/a> as effectively as they did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020359\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020359\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Department Station 28 on Jan. 5, 2025, located on Grass Valley Road in the East Oakland Hills. In 2023, Fire Station 28 responded to 405 calls. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Engines 25 and 28 were amongst the first engines on scene on the Keller Fire,” he told KQED. “The boots on the ground right away made the difference between houses on Campus Drive becoming foundations only, kind of like all this stuff happening down in L.A. The sooner you get resources there, the better the outcome is across the board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the calls that engines from Station 28 answer are almost to the end of the county. If farther stations have to respond to emergencies in its zone, response times could climb, Olyer said — from the usual four minutes up to 15 in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews also have expertise in the topography in their districts, an important factor when navigating the windy, narrow roads of the Oakland Hills. Some of the stations closest to the Oakland Hills also have slightly shorter fire trucks to move through the neighborhood more easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now you have an engine that’s made for driving around on International Boulevard or Telegraph or something trying to wind its way up these hill areas,” Olyer said. “It’s very difficult to maneuver just on a good day, even the smaller engines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In Oakland, which has temporarily closed some fire stations and could shutter more, firefighters have sounded the alarm over budget cuts’ effect on emergency response.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Weeks before the devastating fires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021203/widespread-scope-southern-california-fires-shown-satellite-images\">ravaging Los Angeles\u003c/a>, the city’s fire chief warned that funding cuts would hurt the department’s wildfire response. It’s a message that echoes in Oakland, where the Fire Department is facing massive budget reductions — and some city leaders are hoping the disaster in L.A. will be a wake-up call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted Tuesday, overwhelming firefighters and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">burning thousands of homes\u003c/a>, reports of fire budget cuts flooded online discourse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the Fire Department, according to records from the city controller’s office. Mayor Karen Bass referred to the elimination of some vacant positions as a “reset” and said she didn’t believe it affected the Fire Department’s response this week, and L.A. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s office noted that a union contract passed in November belatedly boosted the budget, going to wage increases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, as recently as December, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley warned in a memo to the board of fire commissioners that the cuts would “limit the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.” The reductions included $7 million for overtime training hours, she said, and funding for 61 civilian positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Oakland, where many are familiar with the devastation that fire can wreak in densely populated hills, severe budget cuts forced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020393/2-oakland-fire-stations-close-amid-budget-crisis-more-could-follow\">the closure of two fire stations\u003c/a> this week, in addition to one already closed for repairs. Four more could shutter next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020360\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020360\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00097-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Department Station 28 on Jan. 5, 2025, is one of two stations scheduled to close until June. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fire officials in the city say the cuts would decimate Oakland’s ability to protect itself from future blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Closing four more firehouses would be the end of fire protection as we know it in Oakland,” said Councilmember Zac Unger, who worked as a city firefighter until retiring from the role 10 days ago to take his council seat. “There is no way to close seven firehouses and not have devastating impacts on both the citizens and on firefighter safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unger, along with Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, said the City Council was working to restore fire services. Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, whose district includes one of the shuttered fire stations, said officials hoped to keep the closures “as brief as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the final decision isn’t the council’s to make. When it approved then-Mayor Sheng Thao’s budget in July, the council gave budget administrator Bradley Johnson permission to select from a menu of cuts under \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12018688/oakland-broad-cuts-public-safety-city-agencies-amid-massive-deficit\">a contingency plan triggered in December\u003c/a> by the stalled sale of Oakland’s stake in the Coliseum. Johnson moved forward with $5.5 million in fire cuts. The second phase, expected to save $7 million more, could begin in February, and station closures could last the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stations shuttered Monday are two of the closest to the hills, where many residents are still terrified by memories of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11893199/the-oakland-hills-fire-transformed-firefighting-along-a-citys-edge-in-california\">1991 Oakland Hills firestorm\u003c/a>. The Tunnel Fire, as it was officially known, was one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/about-us/stories/oakland-hills-firestorm-forward\">most destructive\u003c/a> in California’s history. After a small fire broke out on private land, 70 mph winds caused flames to rip through the hills, burning houses and cars. More than 4,500 firefighters from across Northern California responded to the fire, which destroyed nearly 3,500 homes and killed 25 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seth Olyer, president of the Oakland firefighters union, had a dire message this week for residents around shuttered Fire Stations 25 and 28, near Joaquin Miller Park and the Lake Chabot golf course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chabot Park, Sequoia, Noland Park, Joaquin Miller, Oakmoor, Skyline, Grass Valley, Woodminster, Lincoln Highlands and Crestmont — hear this clearly: if you live in any of those neighborhoods, be aware that you’ll be waiting a very long time for help,” Olyer said Monday on the steps of City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You will not quickly have firefighter paramedics to help you or your family, and what could have been a small blaze or a small fire near your house will become a conflagration, leaving tragedy in its wake,” he continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Olyer said that if all of the cuts go through, closing nearly 30% of the city’s 28 stations, firefighters wouldn’t be able to respond to a fire like October’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010151/oakland-fire-spreads-to-nearby-homes-amid-dry-windy-conditions\">Keller Fire\u003c/a> as effectively as they did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020359\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020359\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250105_OakFireClose_DMB_00091-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland Fire Department Station 28 on Jan. 5, 2025, located on Grass Valley Road in the East Oakland Hills. In 2023, Fire Station 28 responded to 405 calls. \u003ccite>(David M. Barreda/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Engines 25 and 28 were amongst the first engines on scene on the Keller Fire,” he told KQED. “The boots on the ground right away made the difference between houses on Campus Drive becoming foundations only, kind of like all this stuff happening down in L.A. The sooner you get resources there, the better the outcome is across the board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the calls that engines from Station 28 answer are almost to the end of the county. If farther stations have to respond to emergencies in its zone, response times could climb, Olyer said — from the usual four minutes up to 15 in some cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire crews also have expertise in the topography in their districts, an important factor when navigating the windy, narrow roads of the Oakland Hills. Some of the stations closest to the Oakland Hills also have slightly shorter fire trucks to move through the neighborhood more easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now you have an engine that’s made for driving around on International Boulevard or Telegraph or something trying to wind its way up these hill areas,” Olyer said. “It’s very difficult to maneuver just on a good day, even the smaller engines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-quick-federal-aid-la-fires-soon-trump-will-make-calls",
"title": "California Is Quick to Get Federal Aid for LA Fires. But Soon, Trump Will Make Such Calls",
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"headTitle": "California Is Quick to Get Federal Aid for LA Fires. But Soon, Trump Will Make Such Calls | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>As devastating fires continue to burn in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">Los Angeles County\u003c/a>, state lawmakers have moved quickly to secure federal aid — help that some fear could be delayed or cut off in a future disaster under the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Palisades and Eaton fires, which began Tuesday and spread rapidly during strong winds, have destroyed thousands of homes and forced over 100,000 residents to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration on Wednesday after several California representatives and Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the president to swiftly respond to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It didn’t take more than a text message to get [Fire Management Assistance Grants] approved, which means we’re reimbursed for the vast majority of these costs. No politics, no hand wringing, no kissing of the feet,” Newsom said during a press conference on Tuesday. “Emergency proclamations are being drafted as we speak, and I just want to thank the president because that’s something I don’t take for granted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, Biden pledged that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-09/biden-to-address-the-nation-about-la-fires\">federal government\u003c/a> would cover 100% of the costs associated with the wildfires. He also noted that all possible resources are being sent to California to help with firefighting and rescue efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021339\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021339 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Joe Biden delivers remarks regarding the ongoing wildfires impacting Southern California alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom at Santa Monica Fire Department Station 5 in Santa Monica, California, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Scarbrough/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D–San José), who signed the letter to Biden, said his quick response “will accelerate the assistance that is so desperately needed.” But she also acknowledged that Biden only has a few more days left in office. Once his term ends this month, it will be President-elect Donald Trump who is in charge of approving emergency aid distribution on the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his first term as president and throughout his most recent campaign, Trump frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014403/can-trump-really-withhold-fire-relief-from-california-hes-tried-it-before\">threatened\u003c/a> to limit and even cut the amount of financial aid going to California for disaster recovery, decisions that would be well within his authority as president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a natural disaster occurs, states can seek federal assistance through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-stafford.pdf\">Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act\u003c/a>, a law that designed the process by which states can request financial aid in times of emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, state officials proclaim a state of emergency. Then, the governor can look to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a disaster declaration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon determining that a declaration is warranted, FEMA’s recommendation is brought to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who then brings it to the president for final approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021323\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The remains of a house in Altadena, California, after the Eaton Fire swept through the area northeast of Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal aid can help with cash assistance for people who have been evacuated or lost their homes, as well as expedite the process of debris removal and other assistive measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the catastrophic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/camp-fire\">Camp Fire\u003c/a> in 2018 and the major wildfires in 2020, Trump resisted providing aid before eventually capitulating. When eastern Washington also experienced a massive wildfire in 2020, Trump refused to approve any federal assistance, allegedly due to his conflicts with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997690599/a-destroyed-town-denied-aid-by-trump-braces-for-more-wildfires\">NPR report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Biden also faced criticism in 2021 for his denial of individual assistance to those affected by the Caldor Fire in Northern California after FEMA found that enough victims were covered by insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stephen Collier, a professor of regional and city planning at UC Berkeley, said the issue goes beyond just the president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021263\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021263\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buildings are destroyed along Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena, California, after the Eaton Fire swept through the area northeast of Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s complicated how this stuff is going to exactly play out,” Collier said. “There are moments when the Republicans in Congress have resisted more federal aid, but the moment there are disasters in their own states, which happens every year, they ultimately get on board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several Republicans, including Trump, have already vocalized their criticisms of Democratic politicians and policies since the fires began, according to a report by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/trump-musk-california-democrats-wildfires-00197080\">\u003cem>Politico\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The president-elect criticized Newsom in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, calling the fires “virtually apocalyptic” and blaming the governor for not signing a water restoration declaration that he said would have prevented the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12021203 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-019-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Trump’s second term approaches, some lawmakers and experts are concerned about how his attitudes toward California may affect future federal response to such disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matt Sedlar, a climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the distribution of federal emergency aid can sometimes become a matter of politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the very few positive things you can get out of what’s happening right now in Southern California is that Biden is still technically president. The White House did declare a disaster yesterday and they’re starting the process of determining whether funding can go to specific areas,” Sedlar said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued: “If this was happening in February, we would be having a very different conversation because there’s a lot of unpredictability around Trump. But because Biden is still in office, California is likely to get that federal aid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sedlar and Collier urged state officials and residents to begin thinking about mitigation and risk management when it comes to addressing natural disasters and wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re playing defense, and we need to start playing offense. We need to start building better homes. We need to start building better communities,” Sedlar said. “More money needs to go into mitigating these disasters rather than thinking of this after the fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/jlara\">\u003cem>Juan Carlos Lara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">\u003cem>Marisa Lagos\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration and said the federal government would cover 100% of costs, but President-elect Trump has floated withholding aid from California.",
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"title": "California Is Quick to Get Federal Aid for LA Fires. But Soon, Trump Will Make Such Calls | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As devastating fires continue to burn in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/los-angeles-county\">Los Angeles County\u003c/a>, state lawmakers have moved quickly to secure federal aid — help that some fear could be delayed or cut off in a future disaster under the Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Palisades and Eaton fires, which began Tuesday and spread rapidly during strong winds, have destroyed thousands of homes and forced over 100,000 residents to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration on Wednesday after several California representatives and Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the president to swiftly respond to the crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It didn’t take more than a text message to get [Fire Management Assistance Grants] approved, which means we’re reimbursed for the vast majority of these costs. No politics, no hand wringing, no kissing of the feet,” Newsom said during a press conference on Tuesday. “Emergency proclamations are being drafted as we speak, and I just want to thank the president because that’s something I don’t take for granted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday, Biden pledged that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-09/biden-to-address-the-nation-about-la-fires\">federal government\u003c/a> would cover 100% of the costs associated with the wildfires. He also noted that all possible resources are being sent to California to help with firefighting and rescue efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021339\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021339 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfiresJoeBidenAP-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Joe Biden delivers remarks regarding the ongoing wildfires impacting Southern California alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom at Santa Monica Fire Department Station 5 in Santa Monica, California, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Scarbrough/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D–San José), who signed the letter to Biden, said his quick response “will accelerate the assistance that is so desperately needed.” But she also acknowledged that Biden only has a few more days left in office. Once his term ends this month, it will be President-elect Donald Trump who is in charge of approving emergency aid distribution on the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During his first term as president and throughout his most recent campaign, Trump frequently \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014403/can-trump-really-withhold-fire-relief-from-california-hes-tried-it-before\">threatened\u003c/a> to limit and even cut the amount of financial aid going to California for disaster recovery, decisions that would be well within his authority as president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a natural disaster occurs, states can seek federal assistance through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-stafford.pdf\">Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act\u003c/a>, a law that designed the process by which states can request financial aid in times of emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, state officials proclaim a state of emergency. Then, the governor can look to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a disaster declaration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon determining that a declaration is warranted, FEMA’s recommendation is brought to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who then brings it to the president for final approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021323\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-056-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The remains of a house in Altadena, California, after the Eaton Fire swept through the area northeast of Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal aid can help with cash assistance for people who have been evacuated or lost their homes, as well as expedite the process of debris removal and other assistive measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the catastrophic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/camp-fire\">Camp Fire\u003c/a> in 2018 and the major wildfires in 2020, Trump resisted providing aid before eventually capitulating. When eastern Washington also experienced a massive wildfire in 2020, Trump refused to approve any federal assistance, allegedly due to his conflicts with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997690599/a-destroyed-town-denied-aid-by-trump-braces-for-more-wildfires\">NPR report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Biden also faced criticism in 2021 for his denial of individual assistance to those affected by the Caldor Fire in Northern California after FEMA found that enough victims were covered by insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stephen Collier, a professor of regional and city planning at UC Berkeley, said the issue goes beyond just the president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021263\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021263\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-043-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buildings are destroyed along Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena, California, after the Eaton Fire swept through the area northeast of Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s complicated how this stuff is going to exactly play out,” Collier said. “There are moments when the Republicans in Congress have resisted more federal aid, but the moment there are disasters in their own states, which happens every year, they ultimately get on board.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several Republicans, including Trump, have already vocalized their criticisms of Democratic politicians and policies since the fires began, according to a report by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/trump-musk-california-democrats-wildfires-00197080\">\u003cem>Politico\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The president-elect criticized Newsom in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, calling the fires “virtually apocalyptic” and blaming the governor for not signing a water restoration declaration that he said would have prevented the disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Trump’s second term approaches, some lawmakers and experts are concerned about how his attitudes toward California may affect future federal response to such disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matt Sedlar, a climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the distribution of federal emergency aid can sometimes become a matter of politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the very few positive things you can get out of what’s happening right now in Southern California is that Biden is still technically president. The White House did declare a disaster yesterday and they’re starting the process of determining whether funding can go to specific areas,” Sedlar said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued: “If this was happening in February, we would be having a very different conversation because there’s a lot of unpredictability around Trump. But because Biden is still in office, California is likely to get that federal aid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sedlar and Collier urged state officials and residents to begin thinking about mitigation and risk management when it comes to addressing natural disasters and wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re playing defense, and we need to start playing offense. We need to start building better homes. We need to start building better communities,” Sedlar said. “More money needs to go into mitigating these disasters rather than thinking of this after the fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/jlara\">\u003cem>Juan Carlos Lara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/mlagos\">\u003cem>Marisa Lagos\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Widespread Scope of Southern California Fires Is Shown in Satellite Images",
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"headTitle": "Widespread Scope of Southern California Fires Is Shown in Satellite Images | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>The deadly fires ravaging Los Angeles this week have destroyed thousands of homes from the Pacific Coast to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, and by the time the firestorm finally subsides, it is likely to be the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two largest blazes — the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire — have burned more than 27,000 acres combined and remain completely uncontained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that’s far from the scale of the largest wildfires in California history, the flames barreled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">directly into populated areas\u003c/a> on the fringes of a sprawling metropolis, fueled by hurricane-force winds and drought-parched brush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be days, if not weeks, before the extent of the damage is clear. But satellite imagery from San Francisco-based Planet Labs provides a glimpse at how much has burned already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These photos may look strange. That’s because they are what’s known as \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/FalseColor\">false-color images\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1430px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021214 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1430\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1.jpg 1430w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-800x1074.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-1020x1370.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-160x215.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-1144x1536.jpg 1144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A false-color satellite image taken on Jan. 8, 2025, by Planet Labs, which displays healthy vegetation in red, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the Santa Monica Mountains and the neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, stretching to the ocean. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The NRG false-color images here display near-infrared light — which is invisible to the human eye — in red. Because plants reflect infrared light strongly, land that is covered in vegetation shows up as deep red. Denser plant growth appears darker red, making such images helpful for showing the health of vegetation — or where it has been wiped out completely by wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The photo above, taken Wednesday, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the Santa Monica Mountains and the coastal Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember, healthy vegetation shows up as red, so all the land that isn’t red — partially obscured by a thick plume of smoke in the center of the image — is burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021215 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-1229x1536.jpg 1229w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of Planet Labs’ false-color satellite image from Jan. 8, 2025, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the heart of Pacific Palisades. The glow of flames can be seen near Palisades Charter High School in the center-left of the image. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here, a zoomed-in detail of the image shows more closely the fire’s path through the heart of Pacific Palisades, stretching all the way to Will Rogers State Beach at the bottom of the image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The glow of flames can be seen near Palisades Charter High School, which was reportedly all but destroyed, in the center-left of the image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another detailed section of the Palisades Fire satellite image shows where the blaze burned through a Santa Monica Mountains community known as the Summit at Palisades Highlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021216\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021216\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of Planet Labs’ false-color satellite image from Jan. 8, 2025, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through a community known as the Summit at Palisades Highlands in the Santa Monica Mountains. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Preliminary reports suggest that the Palisades Fire alone has damaged or destroyed thousands of structures, officials said in a news conference on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is safe to say that the Palisades Fire is one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles,” L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 miles inland, northeast of the city of Los Angeles, the Eaton Fire has torn through neighborhoods in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interactive slider below overlays two false-color satellite images from Planet Labs. On the left is an image taken Monday, the day before the fires broke out, and on the right is an image taken Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/21102556/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:500px;\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It shows a wide swath of the San Gabriels along with foothill communities below. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is on the left edge of the images, and the city of Sierra Madre is on the right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just north of Pasadena, the fire destroyed entire blocks in the unincorporated community of Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The image below shows a zoomed-in section of Wednesday’s satellite photo from the interactive slider. All of the non-red land in the center is burned vegetation in the foothills of the San Gabriels, and at the bottom is Altadena, obscured by smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021218\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021218\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of a satellite image taken on Jan. 8, 2025, by Planet Labs, which displays healthy vegetation in red, shows where the Eaton Fire burned through the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and into the community of Altadena, seen at the bottom of the image obscured by smoke. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For information on how to support people affected by the L.A. County firestorm and resources for fire victims, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021150/where-to-donate-help-los-angeles-wildfire-eaton-fire-palisades-pasadena\">this guide by KQED’s Nisa Khan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are continuing to battle the fires and had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021107/firefighters-begin-to-slow-spread-of-ferocious-blazes-ravaging-los-angeles\">begun to slow their spread\u003c/a> on Thursday, but wind gusts are expected to strengthen again Thursday evening into Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interactive map below shows the latest on the fires.\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=c7285ba9ce524bbba6c689e96d013112\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14px\">\u003ci>Map by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wildfire locations are sourced from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/\">\u003cem>Cal Fire\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and perimeters from the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/\">\u003cem>National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC)\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Click on each fire icon for more incident-specific details.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The deadly fires ravaging Los Angeles this week have destroyed thousands of homes. Satellite imagery from San Francisco-based Planet Labs shows how much has burned already.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The deadly fires ravaging Los Angeles this week have destroyed thousands of homes from the Pacific Coast to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, and by the time the firestorm finally subsides, it is likely to be the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two largest blazes — the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire — have burned more than 27,000 acres combined and remain completely uncontained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that’s far from the scale of the largest wildfires in California history, the flames barreled \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">directly into populated areas\u003c/a> on the fringes of a sprawling metropolis, fueled by hurricane-force winds and drought-parched brush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will be days, if not weeks, before the extent of the damage is clear. But satellite imagery from San Francisco-based Planet Labs provides a glimpse at how much has burned already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These photos may look strange. That’s because they are what’s known as \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/FalseColor\">false-color images\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1430px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021214 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1430\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1.jpg 1430w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-800x1074.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-1020x1370.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-160x215.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images1-1144x1536.jpg 1144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1430px) 100vw, 1430px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A false-color satellite image taken on Jan. 8, 2025, by Planet Labs, which displays healthy vegetation in red, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the Santa Monica Mountains and the neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, stretching to the ocean. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The NRG false-color images here display near-infrared light — which is invisible to the human eye — in red. Because plants reflect infrared light strongly, land that is covered in vegetation shows up as deep red. Denser plant growth appears darker red, making such images helpful for showing the health of vegetation — or where it has been wiped out completely by wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The photo above, taken Wednesday, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the Santa Monica Mountains and the coastal Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember, healthy vegetation shows up as red, so all the land that isn’t red — partially obscured by a thick plume of smoke in the center of the image — is burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1536px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12021215 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images2-1229x1536.jpg 1229w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of Planet Labs’ false-color satellite image from Jan. 8, 2025, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through the heart of Pacific Palisades. The glow of flames can be seen near Palisades Charter High School in the center-left of the image. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here, a zoomed-in detail of the image shows more closely the fire’s path through the heart of Pacific Palisades, stretching all the way to Will Rogers State Beach at the bottom of the image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The glow of flames can be seen near Palisades Charter High School, which was reportedly all but destroyed, in the center-left of the image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another detailed section of the Palisades Fire satellite image shows where the blaze burned through a Santa Monica Mountains community known as the Summit at Palisades Highlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021216\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021216\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of Planet Labs’ false-color satellite image from Jan. 8, 2025, shows where the Palisades Fire burned through a community known as the Summit at Palisades Highlands in the Santa Monica Mountains. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Preliminary reports suggest that the Palisades Fire alone has damaged or destroyed thousands of structures, officials said in a news conference on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is safe to say that the Palisades Fire is one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles,” L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 miles inland, northeast of the city of Los Angeles, the Eaton Fire has torn through neighborhoods in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interactive slider below overlays two false-color satellite images from Planet Labs. On the left is an image taken Monday, the day before the fires broke out, and on the right is an image taken Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/21102556/embed\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" class=\"flourish-embed-iframe\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:500px;\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It shows a wide swath of the San Gabriels along with foothill communities below. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is on the left edge of the images, and the city of Sierra Madre is on the right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just north of Pasadena, the fire destroyed entire blocks in the unincorporated community of Altadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The image below shows a zoomed-in section of Wednesday’s satellite photo from the interactive slider. All of the non-red land in the center is burned vegetation in the foothills of the San Gabriels, and at the bottom is Altadena, obscured by smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12021218\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12021218\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/Fire-Satellite-Images4-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A zoomed-in detail of a satellite image taken on Jan. 8, 2025, by Planet Labs, which displays healthy vegetation in red, shows where the Eaton Fire burned through the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and into the community of Altadena, seen at the bottom of the image obscured by smoke. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Planet Labs PBC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For information on how to support people affected by the L.A. County firestorm and resources for fire victims, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021150/where-to-donate-help-los-angeles-wildfire-eaton-fire-palisades-pasadena\">this guide by KQED’s Nisa Khan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters are continuing to battle the fires and had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021107/firefighters-begin-to-slow-spread-of-ferocious-blazes-ravaging-los-angeles\">begun to slow their spread\u003c/a> on Thursday, but wind gusts are expected to strengthen again Thursday evening into Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interactive map below shows the latest on the fires.\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=c7285ba9ce524bbba6c689e96d013112\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14px\">\u003ci>Map by Matthew Green/KQED\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wildfire locations are sourced from \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/\">\u003cem>Cal Fire\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and perimeters from the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/\">\u003cem>National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC)\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Click on each fire icon for more incident-specific details.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Read our story on the harrowing evacuations in Pacific Palisades \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>here\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Los Angeles County firestorm continues to rage, taking at least five lives, causing injuries and destroying thousands of buildings. Many homes in some of the most affected areas are covered by the California FAIR plan, the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992401/homeowners-insurance-market-stretched-even-thinner-as-2-more-companies-leave-california\">insurer of last resort\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires could further destabilize an already \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you\">rickety insurance market\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing of the disaster threatens to undermine the fledgling progress state officials have made in attracting insurance companies back to the California market. In the past year, officials have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">overhauled insurance regulations\u003c/a>, working to increase coverage availability to consumers in high-risk areas while responding to long-standing industry requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just going to be in a challenging situation. I think it’s not clear yet how challenging it will be,” said Michael Wara, energy and climate expert at Stanford University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s too early to assess the extent of the destruction, but the fires are likely to be one of the most damaging events in state history. JP Morgan issued a \u003ca href=\"https://www.investors.com/news/top-california-property-insurer-earns-double-upgrade-from-goldman/\">preliminary estimate of $10 billion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the final tally, the fires are sure to be a major hit to large insurers like State Farm, Allstate and Farmers, and to the California FAIR Plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fires have hit one of the highest value areas,” said Ben Collier, professor of risk management and insurance at Temple University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR Plan lists Pacific Palisades as one of the areas where it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/key-statistics-data/\">most financially exposed\u003c/a>, responsible for up to $5.9 billion. Last year, Victoria Roach, the FAIR Plan president, said the plan has about $200 million in surplus and $2.5 billion in reinsurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0300-insurers/0200-bulletins/bulletin-notices-commiss-opinion/upload/BULLETIN_2024-8__RE_INSURER_RECOUPMENT_PROCEDURES_IN_THE_HIGHLY_UNLIKELY_EVENT_OF_ASSESSMENT_BY_THE_FAIR_PLAN.pdf\">clarified\u003c/a> what would happen if the FAIR Plan does not have enough money to pay out claims. Other insurance companies will have to pick up the bill — and will be allowed to pass some of the costs onto customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020929\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020929\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"People fleeing among cars with a tree and orange smoky haze and flames in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People flee from the advancing Palisades Fire, by car and on foot, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Etienne Laurent/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state protects consumers from any changes to their insurance policy for one year following a disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement that his department is committed to ensuring consumers “receive the services you contracted for with your insurance company,” adding that companies are pledging their commitment to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will hold them accountable for the promises they have made,” Lara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s too early to tell if the fires will eclipse the available FAIR Plan funds, if they did, “then the next round of claims would be paid by a combination of insurance companies and from other policyholders of private insurance companies,” Collier said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can already be hard to get insurance in the state, he said, “and this is likely to make the situation notably worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within hours of these fires breaking out, internet rumors began to circulate that these fires would bankrupt insurance companies, including the FAIR Plan. That is unlikely to happen, experts said, because insurance carriers have planned for this contingency.[aside postID=news_12020835 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/CAWildfireSoCal3AP.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement emailed to KQED, a FAIR Plan spokesperson said they are aware of what they called “misinformation being posted online” but added that it is “too early to provide loss estimates as claims are just beginning to be submitted and processed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The FAIR Plan has payment mechanisms in place, including reinsurance, to ensure all covered claims are paid,” the statement said. “The FAIR Plan remains vigilant in working with its customers in these challenging times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State’s insurance regulators have been implementing a massive overhaul of insurance rules designed to ease the crisis in the insurance markets and to allow companies to charge what they think aligns with the risk exposure. In response, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017886/farmers-insurance-to-step-up-coverage-in-california-a-sign-tide-is-turning\">some companies are loosening up\u003c/a>, offering more coverage to attract customers. The fires could backtrack that progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The past year has been accompanied by eye-popping rate increases, particularly in areas with wildfire risk. But Wara said the worst is likely ahead of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rate increases we’ve had, which have been extreme, especially for the people in the high-risk areas, such as the Sierra or Pacific Palisades, but that is a preview at this point of what is to come,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers and insurance companies are likely to feel the pain. Companies often use reinsurance — insurance for insurers — to guarantee they’ll have enough money to pay out claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Insurance companies in a catastrophe are like a bank during a bank run,” Wara said. “And as long as you have enough money in the vault to survive the bank run, you’re OK. But reinsurance means you can keep less money in your own vault because someone else’s vault is available to you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020947\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A firefighter jumps over a low wall and toward a burning house.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A firefighter jumps over a fence while fighting the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, seeing this destruction could prompt reinsurance companies to pull back further from California, meaning insurance companies either have to raise that capital themselves or further reduce their exposure in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state regulates insurance companies, it does not get to exert the same level of control over reinsurers. Nor does the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance is already pricey in California. Make it much worse, and it could become too expensive for many people to own a home here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are places in Florida where insurance costs $50,000 a year,” Wara said. “If that were to happen in California in the wildland-urban interface, we would be in a very different kind of challenge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What has been, until now, an insurance problem could balloon into a homeownership problem, where middle- and working-class people can’t own homes because mortgage, insurance and property taxes simply become too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And [then] you have to sell your house,” Wara said. “And you find that your home value has gone down a lot because the cost of owning your home, including taxes and insurance, is a lot higher than it used to be. And that’s where we might be heading. I hope not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the chances that we are moving in that direction went up as soon as the fires broke out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The fires are on track to become one of the most costly disasters in California history. How will they affect the price of owning a home in years to come? ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Read our story on the harrowing evacuations in Pacific Palisades \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020808/as-la-fires-rage-harrowing-evacuations-play-out-on-traffic-choked-roads\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>here\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Los Angeles County firestorm continues to rage, taking at least five lives, causing injuries and destroying thousands of buildings. Many homes in some of the most affected areas are covered by the California FAIR plan, the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992401/homeowners-insurance-market-stretched-even-thinner-as-2-more-companies-leave-california\">insurer of last resort\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires could further destabilize an already \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you\">rickety insurance market\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing of the disaster threatens to undermine the fledgling progress state officials have made in attracting insurance companies back to the California market. In the past year, officials have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906641/california-regulators-roll-out-plan-to-stabilize-home-insurance-market\">overhauled insurance regulations\u003c/a>, working to increase coverage availability to consumers in high-risk areas while responding to long-standing industry requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just going to be in a challenging situation. I think it’s not clear yet how challenging it will be,” said Michael Wara, energy and climate expert at Stanford University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s too early to assess the extent of the destruction, but the fires are likely to be one of the most damaging events in state history. JP Morgan issued a \u003ca href=\"https://www.investors.com/news/top-california-property-insurer-earns-double-upgrade-from-goldman/\">preliminary estimate of $10 billion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the final tally, the fires are sure to be a major hit to large insurers like State Farm, Allstate and Farmers, and to the California FAIR Plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fires have hit one of the highest value areas,” said Ben Collier, professor of risk management and insurance at Temple University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR Plan lists Pacific Palisades as one of the areas where it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/key-statistics-data/\">most financially exposed\u003c/a>, responsible for up to $5.9 billion. Last year, Victoria Roach, the FAIR Plan president, said the plan has about $200 million in surplus and $2.5 billion in reinsurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0300-insurers/0200-bulletins/bulletin-notices-commiss-opinion/upload/BULLETIN_2024-8__RE_INSURER_RECOUPMENT_PROCEDURES_IN_THE_HIGHLY_UNLIKELY_EVENT_OF_ASSESSMENT_BY_THE_FAIR_PLAN.pdf\">clarified\u003c/a> what would happen if the FAIR Plan does not have enough money to pay out claims. Other insurance companies will have to pick up the bill — and will be allowed to pass some of the costs onto customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020929\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020929\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"People fleeing among cars with a tree and orange smoky haze and flames in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People flee from the advancing Palisades Fire, by car and on foot, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Etienne Laurent/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state protects consumers from any changes to their insurance policy for one year following a disaster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement that his department is committed to ensuring consumers “receive the services you contracted for with your insurance company,” adding that companies are pledging their commitment to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will hold them accountable for the promises they have made,” Lara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s too early to tell if the fires will eclipse the available FAIR Plan funds, if they did, “then the next round of claims would be paid by a combination of insurance companies and from other policyholders of private insurance companies,” Collier said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can already be hard to get insurance in the state, he said, “and this is likely to make the situation notably worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within hours of these fires breaking out, internet rumors began to circulate that these fires would bankrupt insurance companies, including the FAIR Plan. That is unlikely to happen, experts said, because insurance carriers have planned for this contingency.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement emailed to KQED, a FAIR Plan spokesperson said they are aware of what they called “misinformation being posted online” but added that it is “too early to provide loss estimates as claims are just beginning to be submitted and processed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The FAIR Plan has payment mechanisms in place, including reinsurance, to ensure all covered claims are paid,” the statement said. “The FAIR Plan remains vigilant in working with its customers in these challenging times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State’s insurance regulators have been implementing a massive overhaul of insurance rules designed to ease the crisis in the insurance markets and to allow companies to charge what they think aligns with the risk exposure. In response, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017886/farmers-insurance-to-step-up-coverage-in-california-a-sign-tide-is-turning\">some companies are loosening up\u003c/a>, offering more coverage to attract customers. The fires could backtrack that progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The past year has been accompanied by eye-popping rate increases, particularly in areas with wildfire risk. But Wara said the worst is likely ahead of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rate increases we’ve had, which have been extreme, especially for the people in the high-risk areas, such as the Sierra or Pacific Palisades, but that is a preview at this point of what is to come,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customers and insurance companies are likely to feel the pain. Companies often use reinsurance — insurance for insurers — to guarantee they’ll have enough money to pay out claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Insurance companies in a catastrophe are like a bank during a bank run,” Wara said. “And as long as you have enough money in the vault to survive the bank run, you’re OK. But reinsurance means you can keep less money in your own vault because someone else’s vault is available to you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020947\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A firefighter jumps over a low wall and toward a burning house.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-14-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A firefighter jumps over a fence while fighting the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, seeing this destruction could prompt reinsurance companies to pull back further from California, meaning insurance companies either have to raise that capital themselves or further reduce their exposure in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state regulates insurance companies, it does not get to exert the same level of control over reinsurers. Nor does the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance is already pricey in California. Make it much worse, and it could become too expensive for many people to own a home here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are places in Florida where insurance costs $50,000 a year,” Wara said. “If that were to happen in California in the wildland-urban interface, we would be in a very different kind of challenge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What has been, until now, an insurance problem could balloon into a homeownership problem, where middle- and working-class people can’t own homes because mortgage, insurance and property taxes simply become too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And [then] you have to sell your house,” Wara said. “And you find that your home value has gone down a lot because the cost of owning your home, including taxes and insurance, is a lot higher than it used to be. And that’s where we might be heading. I hope not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the chances that we are moving in that direction went up as soon as the fires broke out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "As LA Fires Rage, Harrowing Evacuations Play Out on Traffic-Choked Roads",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Californians pay hefty fees for electricity in large part because of wildfires. Read KQED’s coverage \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020600/californians-pay-hefty-fee-electricity-rates-likely-keep-increasing\">here\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning, Vidda Brough heard a large crash outside of her home. Hurricane-force winds swept through her street in Pacific Palisades, an affluent residential neighborhood with sweeping views of Los Angeles. Spanish tiles flew off of Brough’s roof, crashing to the driveway below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she stepped outside to investigate, she smelled smoke. When she went back inside, she looked out a window facing the hillside behind her house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orange flames roared in her backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough built her dream home, one that she and her husband had designed together, more than 40 years ago. During the Old Topanga Fire in 1993, her husband stayed behind to protect the property with a garden hose. Brough, a retired public school teacher, had never seen anything like the blaze that threatened her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I realized I needed to get out,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020750/wildfires-ravage-los-angeles-thousands-evacuated\">80,000 residents of Los Angeles County\u003c/a> were under orders to evacuate as of Wednesday afternoon, including 30,000 Pacific Palisades residents, after a destructive series of fires broke out Tuesday and exploded in intensity Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, at least five people have been killed, and more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been scorched, making this one of the most destructive firestorms in recent history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough said she was shaking as she got in her car. She managed to drive down a winding road to scenic Sunset Boulevard. As she drove, she stayed on the phone with her son, Branden, whose presence helped keep her calm, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police officers routed her west, towards the Pacific Palisades Highlands neighborhood. But after about a half mile, she said first responders rerouted her east. Eventually, she made it to her brother’s house in South Pasadena, where she reunited with her husband. The trip took eight hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020979\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020979\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Eaton Fire burns a vehicle Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the foothills northeast of Los Angeles, the deadly Eaton Fire has grown to more than 10,000 acres, burning through Altadena and Pasadena, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Evacuation orders expanded to include communities in eastern Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge and northern Monrovia. In the San Fernando Valley, the Hurst Fire has burned nearly 1,000 acres near the suburban community of Sylmar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the Pacific Palisades, the Palisades fire has consumed over 11,000 acres, moving westward along the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of cars were abandoned along Palisades Drive and Sunset Boulevard as people fled on foot because of the traffic jam. Responders with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were seen pushing cars aside with a bulldozer in order to create a path for emergency vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenichi Haskett, a section chief of L.A. County Fire in Palisades, described navigating the Palisades as similar to some of the hillier neighborhoods in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a foothills community where we had to evacuate 25,000 people who all jammed into the road together and created a bottleneck,” Haskett said. “Many left their cars and ran or walked away, which is not a bad idea, but it left a traffic jam and was difficult for our firefighters to get out.”[aside postID=news_12020835 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-20-scaled.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, encountering \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11743347/california-towns-at-risk-from-fires-often-have-few-ways-out\">gridlocked roads\u003c/a> is not uncommon during emergency evacuations in California, especially in cities with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946668/data-pinpoints-14-california-communities-with-most-limited-emergency-escape-routes\">limited evacuation points\u003c/a>. During the catastrophic Camp Fire in 2019, over 25,000 Paradise residents attempted to evacuate the area only to get caught in a massive traffic jam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to wildfire evacuations expert Tom Cova, many towns only have one or two evacuation routes that residents can use to leave during an emergency. The problem occurs when thousands of people attempt to evacuate at the same time, leading to road congestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like being at a concert, the density of these communities, and if you leave early, you just stand up and walk out,” Cova, a professor of geography at the University of Utah, said. “But if you delay your departure, if you’re spending a lot of time gathering things and maybe hesitating whether or not you’re at risk, then you’ll find yourself in the midst of the main travel pull.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cova said many of the cities and towns being impacted by these fires grow organically with little consideration for how roads would need to operate during emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, gridlock is not new to Los Angeles,” said Paul Friedman, chief technical officer of Streetlight Data, a San Francisco-based traffic analytics company. “Due to urban sprawl, poor urban planning, poor zoning laws, houses are very spread out and people need more road capacity per person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued: “If you just have one hour to get everybody out, you’re going to have problems. These roads are not designed to empty a community in one hour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946668/data-pinpoints-14-california-communities-with-most-limited-emergency-escape-routes\">2019 study published\u003c/a> by Streetlight Data identified 100 communities in the country that have the fewest evacuation routes, and California had 14.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are only a few things city officials can do to avoid issues of gridlock and congestion during emergencies, Friedman said. The first would be to issue evacuation and emergency warnings earlier in order to give residents more time to leave. The second would be to transition more two-way roads into one-way roads. The California Highway Patrol did a similar thing in Santa Cruz after the CZU Lightning Complex fires in 2020, Friedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evacuation might be the gravest danger associated with wildfires, according to Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at UC Berkeley. Stephens said that while evacuating an area may sometimes be necessary, doing so can leave people exposed to smoke and fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All it takes is one accident, a smoky road or maybe a power line down, and essentially, you’ve just blocked that evacuation route,” Stephens said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020989\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020989\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Mantia, left, and her boyfriend Thomas, who only gave his first, return to Mantia’s fire-damaged home after the Eaton Fire swept through on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, for people in L.A. County who are currently facing evacuation notices and imminent fire warnings, the experts interviewed by KQED urged residents to listen to law enforcement and city officials and to follow all warnings and instructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re in a warning area, you need to be ready to go. An order means you need to go,” Haskett said. “We want people to heed the evacuation orders and be ready to go once that evacuation order has been issued.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough is waiting to see whether she will have to evacuate again — and when she will be able to return home. Although she always has a bag packed for emergencies, when she fled, she left without her purse and her wedding rings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her son went online to find evidence of whether or not the home his parents built was still intact. \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/carterevans/?hl=en\">Carter Evans\u003c/a>, a CBS journalist who lives in their neighborhood, went live on Instagram in a video where first responders handed him a garden hose to help fight flames. In the video, Brough’s son could see his parents’ home still standing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone has been so lucky. Ed Stark, who lives less than a mile from Brough, received a fateful email on Wednesday afternoon from his neighbor: Stark’s house had burned to ashes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were no fire trucks around,” Stark, 75, told KQED. “We were unable to get back and remove anything. We have nothing from the house but the clothes on our backs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stark, a trial attorney and an adjunct law professor, said he and his wife had just started fixing up their house. He had 25 years of articles and course materials saved on his laptop and iPad that were incinerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are grateful that we are alive and that our children are alive. And God forbid, had we lost a loved one, it would be much worse,” Stark said. “But it’s like getting hit in the head with a hammer. It’s just a shock to the entire system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Californians pay hefty fees for electricity in large part because of wildfires. Read KQED’s coverage \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020600/californians-pay-hefty-fee-electricity-rates-likely-keep-increasing\">here\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday morning, Vidda Brough heard a large crash outside of her home. Hurricane-force winds swept through her street in Pacific Palisades, an affluent residential neighborhood with sweeping views of Los Angeles. Spanish tiles flew off of Brough’s roof, crashing to the driveway below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she stepped outside to investigate, she smelled smoke. When she went back inside, she looked out a window facing the hillside behind her house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orange flames roared in her backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough built her dream home, one that she and her husband had designed together, more than 40 years ago. During the Old Topanga Fire in 1993, her husband stayed behind to protect the property with a garden hose. Brough, a retired public school teacher, had never seen anything like the blaze that threatened her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I realized I needed to get out,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020750/wildfires-ravage-los-angeles-thousands-evacuated\">80,000 residents of Los Angeles County\u003c/a> were under orders to evacuate as of Wednesday afternoon, including 30,000 Pacific Palisades residents, after a destructive series of fires broke out Tuesday and exploded in intensity Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, at least five people have been killed, and more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been scorched, making this one of the most destructive firestorms in recent history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough said she was shaking as she got in her car. She managed to drive down a winding road to scenic Sunset Boulevard. As she drove, she stayed on the phone with her son, Branden, whose presence helped keep her calm, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police officers routed her west, towards the Pacific Palisades Highlands neighborhood. But after about a half mile, she said first responders rerouted her east. Eventually, she made it to her brother’s house in South Pasadena, where she reunited with her husband. The trip took eight hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020979\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020979\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008811327495-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Eaton Fire burns a vehicle Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the foothills northeast of Los Angeles, the deadly Eaton Fire has grown to more than 10,000 acres, burning through Altadena and Pasadena, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Evacuation orders expanded to include communities in eastern Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge and northern Monrovia. In the San Fernando Valley, the Hurst Fire has burned nearly 1,000 acres near the suburban community of Sylmar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the Pacific Palisades, the Palisades fire has consumed over 11,000 acres, moving westward along the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of cars were abandoned along Palisades Drive and Sunset Boulevard as people fled on foot because of the traffic jam. Responders with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were seen pushing cars aside with a bulldozer in order to create a path for emergency vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenichi Haskett, a section chief of L.A. County Fire in Palisades, described navigating the Palisades as similar to some of the hillier neighborhoods in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a foothills community where we had to evacuate 25,000 people who all jammed into the road together and created a bottleneck,” Haskett said. “Many left their cars and ran or walked away, which is not a bad idea, but it left a traffic jam and was difficult for our firefighters to get out.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, encountering \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11743347/california-towns-at-risk-from-fires-often-have-few-ways-out\">gridlocked roads\u003c/a> is not uncommon during emergency evacuations in California, especially in cities with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946668/data-pinpoints-14-california-communities-with-most-limited-emergency-escape-routes\">limited evacuation points\u003c/a>. During the catastrophic Camp Fire in 2019, over 25,000 Paradise residents attempted to evacuate the area only to get caught in a massive traffic jam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to wildfire evacuations expert Tom Cova, many towns only have one or two evacuation routes that residents can use to leave during an emergency. The problem occurs when thousands of people attempt to evacuate at the same time, leading to road congestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like being at a concert, the density of these communities, and if you leave early, you just stand up and walk out,” Cova, a professor of geography at the University of Utah, said. “But if you delay your departure, if you’re spending a lot of time gathering things and maybe hesitating whether or not you’re at risk, then you’ll find yourself in the midst of the main travel pull.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cova said many of the cities and towns being impacted by these fires grow organically with little consideration for how roads would need to operate during emergencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, gridlock is not new to Los Angeles,” said Paul Friedman, chief technical officer of Streetlight Data, a San Francisco-based traffic analytics company. “Due to urban sprawl, poor urban planning, poor zoning laws, houses are very spread out and people need more road capacity per person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued: “If you just have one hour to get everybody out, you’re going to have problems. These roads are not designed to empty a community in one hour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946668/data-pinpoints-14-california-communities-with-most-limited-emergency-escape-routes\">2019 study published\u003c/a> by Streetlight Data identified 100 communities in the country that have the fewest evacuation routes, and California had 14.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are only a few things city officials can do to avoid issues of gridlock and congestion during emergencies, Friedman said. The first would be to issue evacuation and emergency warnings earlier in order to give residents more time to leave. The second would be to transition more two-way roads into one-way roads. The California Highway Patrol did a similar thing in Santa Cruz after the CZU Lightning Complex fires in 2020, Friedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evacuation might be the gravest danger associated with wildfires, according to Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at UC Berkeley. Stephens said that while evacuating an area may sometimes be necessary, doing so can leave people exposed to smoke and fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All it takes is one accident, a smoky road or maybe a power line down, and essentially, you’ve just blocked that evacuation route,” Stephens said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020989\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020989\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008788861309-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Megan Mantia, left, and her boyfriend Thomas, who only gave his first, return to Mantia’s fire-damaged home after the Eaton Fire swept through on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. \u003ccite>(Ethan Swope/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, for people in L.A. County who are currently facing evacuation notices and imminent fire warnings, the experts interviewed by KQED urged residents to listen to law enforcement and city officials and to follow all warnings and instructions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re in a warning area, you need to be ready to go. An order means you need to go,” Haskett said. “We want people to heed the evacuation orders and be ready to go once that evacuation order has been issued.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brough is waiting to see whether she will have to evacuate again — and when she will be able to return home. Although she always has a bag packed for emergencies, when she fled, she left without her purse and her wedding rings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her son went online to find evidence of whether or not the home his parents built was still intact. \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/carterevans/?hl=en\">Carter Evans\u003c/a>, a CBS journalist who lives in their neighborhood, went live on Instagram in a video where first responders handed him a garden hose to help fight flames. In the video, Brough’s son could see his parents’ home still standing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone has been so lucky. Ed Stark, who lives less than a mile from Brough, received a fateful email on Wednesday afternoon from his neighbor: Stark’s house had burned to ashes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were no fire trucks around,” Stark, 75, told KQED. “We were unable to get back and remove anything. We have nothing from the house but the clothes on our backs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stark, a trial attorney and an adjunct law professor, said he and his wife had just started fixing up their house. He had 25 years of articles and course materials saved on his laptop and iPad that were incinerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are grateful that we are alive and that our children are alive. And God forbid, had we lost a loved one, it would be much worse,” Stark said. “But it’s like getting hit in the head with a hammer. It’s just a shock to the entire system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "What Are the Santa Ana Winds Fueling LA's Ferocious Wildfires?",
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"content": "\u003cp>The intense and fast-moving fires that have cut a path of destruction through the suburbs of Los Angeles, killing at least two people, are being driven by \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/shows/take-two/the-santa-ana-winds-a-cultural-and-destructive-force-in-southern-california\">the region’s powerful Santa Ana winds\u003c/a>, with gusts that in some cases surpass hurricane-strength.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two largest blazes — \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/fires-southern-california-gusty-winds\">the Palisades \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/eaton-fire-altadena\">Eaton Fires\u003c/a> — have consumed more than 10,000 acres each and prompted mandatory evacuations for almost 70,000 people as of Wednesday. Another 58,000 people have been warned to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the Santa Anas are \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/shows/take-two/the-santa-ana-winds-a-cultural-and-destructive-force-in-southern-california\">a routine part of life\u003c/a> for people living in southern California, the winds are particularly violent and destructive this time around, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferocious winds are likely to make it difficult or impossible for firefighters to contain the blazes until conditions improve. For now, however, the National Weather Service is warning of sustained winds up to 40 mph in the region, with gusts up to 80 mph in the area of the wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Wofford, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard, Calif., says \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/santa-ana-winds-come-back-bringing-the-potential-of-more-fire-weather-this-week\">the Santa Ana winds are most common during the cooler months\u003c/a> from September through May. They are caused by high pressure over the desert of the southwestern U.S. that pushes through the mountain passages in Southern California toward an area of lower pressure off the Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The high pressure that develops over that region, coupled with lower pressure down over southern California, creates this strong flow of air that comes out of Nevada and hits our coastal mountain range, the San Gabriel Mountains, and out to the Inland Empire area,” Wofford says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key characteristic is that the winds are what’s known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/news/earthword-katabatic-winds\">katabatic\u003c/a>, meaning they flow downhill, says Mingfang Ting, a professor at Columbia University’s Climate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the air mass drops in altitude, it compresses and heats up — by about 10 degrees Celsius per kilometer (18 degrees Fahrenheit per 0.6 of a mile). It’s a “very effective way of warming up the air,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the air warms up, it also decreases its humidity,” she says. Funneling through narrow mountain passes, it also speeds up in much the same way that air moving through a tunnel or the wind between buildings is stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, that makes for warm, dry Santa Anas that can be reach 40–60 mph, with gusts exceeding 70 mph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But “this one is not typical,” Wofford says. This time, the Santa Anas are coupled with “very strong winds in the upper atmosphere. In addition to funneling through the mountains, they went up and over the mountains and then they descended down into the basin area,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is wind gusts as high as 100 mph in some places, he says, adding that the current dry conditions mean, “everything is just primed and ready to go” for wildfires.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12020988,news_12020835,news_12020918\"]“Obviously, we’ve got a zillion cars in the area. If one breaks down, overheats, and someone pulls over next to an area where there’s some dry brush, that can kick it off,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Park Williams, a professor of geography who heads the HyFiVeS Research Group (Hydroclimate, Fire, Vegetation, and Society) at UCLA describes the current scenario as a “highly improbable sequence of extreme climate and weather events over the past two years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the dry weather this year, he says, but “from winter 2023 through spring 2024, the Los Angeles area experienced an exceptionally wet climate and this led to the growth of an extraordinary amount of new vegetation biomass in the hills and mountains surrounding the city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What role might climate change play? As \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/30/1196637141/climate-change-makes-wildfires-in-california-more-explosive\">NPR has reported previously\u003c/a>, a hotter atmosphere due to climate change can lead to the rapid spread of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for having an impact on the frequency and intensity of Santa Ana winds, Ting is circumspect. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I think more importantly in this case, if you wanted to say anything about the role [that] global climate change plays, is the dryness in the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is following the extreme weather from across the region. Click through to \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/\">\u003cem>LAist’s coverage\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> for the latest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The intense and fast-moving fires that have cut a path of destruction through the suburbs of Los Angeles, killing at least two people, are being driven by \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/shows/take-two/the-santa-ana-winds-a-cultural-and-destructive-force-in-southern-california\">the region’s powerful Santa Ana winds\u003c/a>, with gusts that in some cases surpass hurricane-strength.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two largest blazes — \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/fires-southern-california-gusty-winds\">the Palisades \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/eaton-fire-altadena\">Eaton Fires\u003c/a> — have consumed more than 10,000 acres each and prompted mandatory evacuations for almost 70,000 people as of Wednesday. Another 58,000 people have been warned to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the Santa Anas are \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/shows/take-two/the-santa-ana-winds-a-cultural-and-destructive-force-in-southern-california\">a routine part of life\u003c/a> for people living in southern California, the winds are particularly violent and destructive this time around, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferocious winds are likely to make it difficult or impossible for firefighters to contain the blazes until conditions improve. For now, however, the National Weather Service is warning of sustained winds up to 40 mph in the region, with gusts up to 80 mph in the area of the wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Wofford, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard, Calif., says \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/santa-ana-winds-come-back-bringing-the-potential-of-more-fire-weather-this-week\">the Santa Ana winds are most common during the cooler months\u003c/a> from September through May. They are caused by high pressure over the desert of the southwestern U.S. that pushes through the mountain passages in Southern California toward an area of lower pressure off the Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The high pressure that develops over that region, coupled with lower pressure down over southern California, creates this strong flow of air that comes out of Nevada and hits our coastal mountain range, the San Gabriel Mountains, and out to the Inland Empire area,” Wofford says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key characteristic is that the winds are what’s known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/news/earthword-katabatic-winds\">katabatic\u003c/a>, meaning they flow downhill, says Mingfang Ting, a professor at Columbia University’s Climate School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the air mass drops in altitude, it compresses and heats up — by about 10 degrees Celsius per kilometer (18 degrees Fahrenheit per 0.6 of a mile). It’s a “very effective way of warming up the air,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the air warms up, it also decreases its humidity,” she says. Funneling through narrow mountain passes, it also speeds up in much the same way that air moving through a tunnel or the wind between buildings is stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, that makes for warm, dry Santa Anas that can be reach 40–60 mph, with gusts exceeding 70 mph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But “this one is not typical,” Wofford says. This time, the Santa Anas are coupled with “very strong winds in the upper atmosphere. In addition to funneling through the mountains, they went up and over the mountains and then they descended down into the basin area,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result is wind gusts as high as 100 mph in some places, he says, adding that the current dry conditions mean, “everything is just primed and ready to go” for wildfires.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Obviously, we’ve got a zillion cars in the area. If one breaks down, overheats, and someone pulls over next to an area where there’s some dry brush, that can kick it off,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Park Williams, a professor of geography who heads the HyFiVeS Research Group (Hydroclimate, Fire, Vegetation, and Society) at UCLA describes the current scenario as a “highly improbable sequence of extreme climate and weather events over the past two years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just the dry weather this year, he says, but “from winter 2023 through spring 2024, the Los Angeles area experienced an exceptionally wet climate and this led to the growth of an extraordinary amount of new vegetation biomass in the hills and mountains surrounding the city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What role might climate change play? As \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/30/1196637141/climate-change-makes-wildfires-in-california-more-explosive\">NPR has reported previously\u003c/a>, a hotter atmosphere due to climate change can lead to the rapid spread of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for having an impact on the frequency and intensity of Santa Ana winds, Ting is circumspect. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I think more importantly in this case, if you wanted to say anything about the role [that] global climate change plays, is the dryness in the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is following the extreme weather from across the region. Click through to \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/\">\u003cem>LAist’s coverage\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> for the latest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "californians-pay-hefty-fee-electricity-rates-likely-keep-increasing",
"title": "Californians Pay Hefty Fee for Electricity, and Rates are Likely to Keep Increasing",
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"headTitle": "Californians Pay Hefty Fee for Electricity, and Rates are Likely to Keep Increasing | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Read KQED’s coverage of the devastating Southern California fires \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">\u003cem>here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians pay nearly double the average residential electricity rates of people living elsewhere in the country, according to a state report out this week. And electricity rates in the state are growing rapidly, outpacing inflation and increasing faster than in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trends are likely to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2025/4950/Residential-Electricity-Rates-010725.pdf\">report\u003c/a>, written by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, cited a variety of reasons for the high costs that the majority of Californians pay, but the leading one was the expense of wildfire, both to mitigate future risk as well as address damages from past fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires burning in Southern California presently could be the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">most expensive in U.S. history\u003c/a>, although it is not clear what started them yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high rates are mostly driven by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities: PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. Average rates charged by California’s publicly owned utilities are closer to national averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been very striking to Californians how much electricity rates have increased and how high they are in the state,” said lead author Helen Kerstein, a principal fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO. “This report is really intended to provide the basic information to folks in the Legislature, as well as the general public, to help understand what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11751033\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11751033 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-e1559198784751.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The high rates are mostly driven by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities: PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other costs come from state programs and policies to slash greenhouse gas pollution and what the report referred to as differences in utility operational structures and service territories. Large, investor-owned utilities have goals to make profits for shareholders, for example, whereas publicly owned utilities may have a board that is elected by customers and might, therefore, be more cost-conscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Investor-owned utilities also serve larger areas, with poles and wires zig-zagging across dense cities, climbing through suburbs and into forests across the state’s remote foothills and mountain communities. Covering such diverse terrain leads to higher costs overall. Smaller, publicly owned utilities tend to be in more concentrated, urban areas, which have lower fire risks and might be less costly for these reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some customers pay high prices to offset expenses for others on the same system, including cost-reduction programs for low-income earners and rooftop solar customers, according to the LAO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paying huge sums each month for electricity not only hurts the average consumer but squeezes low-income people who live in areas where they may need additional cooling or heating as climate change leads to striking swings in temperatures and worsening heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12017635 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/07/trucks-I880-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The major costs associated with electricity have impeded state efforts to promote electric cars and appliances to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, high electricity rates encouraged conserving energy, Kerstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we understand that, yes, conservation is good, but also we need to get folks to electrify and move towards electricity rather than fossil-fuel powered cars and natural gas,” she said. “That means that addressing affordability in electricity is so critical for the state, and thinking about those issues is going to be increasingly important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the report did not recommend ways lawmakers could address electricity costs, it highlighted the trade-offs of various policy solutions, “including balancing the desires to both mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as preserve affordability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And lawmakers are already jumping into the ring to tackle the hot-button issue. State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, who was recently appointed chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, declared his commitment to affordability in a statement earlier this week. And Bay Area Democrats told the \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> that they plan to take on \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/01/06/we-get-it-democrats-aim-to-cut-californias-cost-of-living-in-2025/\">electricity bills\u003c/a> this session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Campbell, executive director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, said one way to address rising consumer bills is to shift the costs of mitigating wildfires and climate change programs from utility bills to the state budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire risk is not primarily a utility issue, and it relates to forest management and climate change and other things which are state problems, state challenges,” he said. “Some of those costs to address that could be moved from bills onto the state budget.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, Campbell said that programs assisting low-income households and other environmental programs could be paid for through the state budget, which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced may see a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020389/newsom-projects-slight-budget-surplus-with-focus-on-saving-accountability\">slight surplus this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until this recent affordability crisis, the Legislature has looked at utility bills as an alternative way to pay for things that they want to happen,” Campbell said. “That’s something that’s not going to work going forward and probably needs to be reversed for some of the past decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new state report cites wildfire costs and the state’s ambitious climate programs as main contributors to skyrocketing energy bills, warning Californians will need to make trade-offs to make electricity bills affordable.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Read KQED’s coverage of the devastating Southern California fires \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">\u003cem>here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians pay nearly double the average residential electricity rates of people living elsewhere in the country, according to a state report out this week. And electricity rates in the state are growing rapidly, outpacing inflation and increasing faster than in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trends are likely to continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2025/4950/Residential-Electricity-Rates-010725.pdf\">report\u003c/a>, written by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, cited a variety of reasons for the high costs that the majority of Californians pay, but the leading one was the expense of wildfire, both to mitigate future risk as well as address damages from past fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires burning in Southern California presently could be the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020835/southern-california-fires-could-be-most-expensive-us-history\">most expensive in U.S. history\u003c/a>, although it is not clear what started them yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high rates are mostly driven by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities: PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. Average rates charged by California’s publicly owned utilities are closer to national averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been very striking to Californians how much electricity rates have increased and how high they are in the state,” said lead author Helen Kerstein, a principal fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO. “This report is really intended to provide the basic information to folks in the Legislature, as well as the general public, to help understand what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11751033\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11751033 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/GettyImages-76412182-e1559198784751.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The high rates are mostly driven by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities: PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other costs come from state programs and policies to slash greenhouse gas pollution and what the report referred to as differences in utility operational structures and service territories. Large, investor-owned utilities have goals to make profits for shareholders, for example, whereas publicly owned utilities may have a board that is elected by customers and might, therefore, be more cost-conscious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Investor-owned utilities also serve larger areas, with poles and wires zig-zagging across dense cities, climbing through suburbs and into forests across the state’s remote foothills and mountain communities. Covering such diverse terrain leads to higher costs overall. Smaller, publicly owned utilities tend to be in more concentrated, urban areas, which have lower fire risks and might be less costly for these reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some customers pay high prices to offset expenses for others on the same system, including cost-reduction programs for low-income earners and rooftop solar customers, according to the LAO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paying huge sums each month for electricity not only hurts the average consumer but squeezes low-income people who live in areas where they may need additional cooling or heating as climate change leads to striking swings in temperatures and worsening heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The major costs associated with electricity have impeded state efforts to promote electric cars and appliances to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, high electricity rates encouraged conserving energy, Kerstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now we understand that, yes, conservation is good, but also we need to get folks to electrify and move towards electricity rather than fossil-fuel powered cars and natural gas,” she said. “That means that addressing affordability in electricity is so critical for the state, and thinking about those issues is going to be increasingly important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the report did not recommend ways lawmakers could address electricity costs, it highlighted the trade-offs of various policy solutions, “including balancing the desires to both mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as preserve affordability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And lawmakers are already jumping into the ring to tackle the hot-button issue. State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, who was recently appointed chair of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, declared his commitment to affordability in a statement earlier this week. And Bay Area Democrats told the \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> that they plan to take on \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/01/06/we-get-it-democrats-aim-to-cut-californias-cost-of-living-in-2025/\">electricity bills\u003c/a> this session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Campbell, executive director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, said one way to address rising consumer bills is to shift the costs of mitigating wildfires and climate change programs from utility bills to the state budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire risk is not primarily a utility issue, and it relates to forest management and climate change and other things which are state problems, state challenges,” he said. “Some of those costs to address that could be moved from bills onto the state budget.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, Campbell said that programs assisting low-income households and other environmental programs could be paid for through the state budget, which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced may see a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020389/newsom-projects-slight-budget-surplus-with-focus-on-saving-accountability\">slight surplus this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until this recent affordability crisis, the Legislature has looked at utility bills as an alternative way to pay for things that they want to happen,” Campbell said. “That’s something that’s not going to work going forward and probably needs to be reversed for some of the past decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Southern California Fires Show Climate Change’s Devastating Effects. Here’s How",
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"content": "\u003cp>The deadly fires burning in Southern California collectively could become the most expensive wildfire disaster in U.S. history, one leading climate scientist said, underscoring the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984200/climate-change-makes-wildfires-in-california-more-extreme\">devastating effects of human-caused climate change\u003c/a> that primed the region for a major fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020765/thousands-flee-los-angeles-area-as-wildfires-burn-out-of-control-destroying-homes\">four separate fires were burning\u003c/a> in the metropolitan Los Angeles area on Wednesday after igniting and being whipped by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020521/winds-raise-extreme-fire-risk-in-southern-california-but-bay-area-is-spared-by-rain\">extreme winds\u003c/a>, destroying more than 1,000 structures, killing at least two people and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These fires will likely be the costliest in history, not the deadliest, and that is the only silver lining right now,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But why are the fires so big during winter? Swain said a “triple whammy” of climate and weather effects are causing the fires to burgeon in size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After two of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1983097/what-californias-wet-winter-means-for-fire-season\">wettest years on record\u003c/a> in Southern California, the region’s mountains are blanketed with nearly double the average amount of tall grasses and chaparral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was followed by the hottest summer on record for parts of the region, which significantly dried out the abundant vegetation. In September, major heat waves further dried out fuels. Plus, parts of coastal Southern California have seen the driest and hottest start to winter on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12020765 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/AP25008230498824-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain said that much of the area has burned due to having “the most thirsty atmosphere on record since October 1st.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These conditions created the perfect scenario for a wildfire to grow out of control and spread into populated areas. The fires became uncontrollable when Santa Ana winds — common for the winter but especially extreme this week — picked up. Winds across the foothills and valleys were \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/TextProduct?product=pnslox\">as strong as 70 mph\u003c/a>, with gusts touching 100 mph higher in the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Southern California fires remind Swain of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11837188/how-could-this-happen-twice-camp-fire-survivors-who-moved-away-relive-wildfire-trauma\">Camp Fire\u003c/a>, which leveled the town of Paradise near Chico in 2018 and was the deadliest fire in California history, killing 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the same story of what happened in Paradise,” he said. “That occurred in November in Northern California in a very wet part of the state that hadn’t yet received seasonal precipitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain sees clear links between human-caused climate change — driving extreme dry fuel conditions and record warmth — and the fires raging in Southern California. A warming world means wetter wet periods, hotter temperatures, and more extreme droughts. This flip-flopping, both at the sub-seasonal and interannual levels, will stoke wildfires when ignited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just that drier conditions are perpetually more likely in a warming climate; it’s that this oscillation back and forth between states is something that is particularly consequential for wildfire risk in Southern California,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a warming climate where global emissions continue to rise, he said, “there’s every indication” that the wettest years will become even more soaked, summers will continue to warm, and autumn will get drier, which means that this cycle of Southern California burning could likely be commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Palisades Fire and others burning in the L.A. area could become the most expensive wildfire disaster in U.S. history, as scientists say the region was primed for a major fire.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The deadly fires burning in Southern California collectively could become the most expensive wildfire disaster in U.S. history, one leading climate scientist said, underscoring the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984200/climate-change-makes-wildfires-in-california-more-extreme\">devastating effects of human-caused climate change\u003c/a> that primed the region for a major fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020765/thousands-flee-los-angeles-area-as-wildfires-burn-out-of-control-destroying-homes\">four separate fires were burning\u003c/a> in the metropolitan Los Angeles area on Wednesday after igniting and being whipped by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020521/winds-raise-extreme-fire-risk-in-southern-california-but-bay-area-is-spared-by-rain\">extreme winds\u003c/a>, destroying more than 1,000 structures, killing at least two people and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These fires will likely be the costliest in history, not the deadliest, and that is the only silver lining right now,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But why are the fires so big during winter? Swain said a “triple whammy” of climate and weather effects are causing the fires to burgeon in size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After two of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1983097/what-californias-wet-winter-means-for-fire-season\">wettest years on record\u003c/a> in Southern California, the region’s mountains are blanketed with nearly double the average amount of tall grasses and chaparral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was followed by the hottest summer on record for parts of the region, which significantly dried out the abundant vegetation. In September, major heat waves further dried out fuels. Plus, parts of coastal Southern California have seen the driest and hottest start to winter on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain said that much of the area has burned due to having “the most thirsty atmosphere on record since October 1st.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These conditions created the perfect scenario for a wildfire to grow out of control and spread into populated areas. The fires became uncontrollable when Santa Ana winds — common for the winter but especially extreme this week — picked up. Winds across the foothills and valleys were \u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/TextProduct?product=pnslox\">as strong as 70 mph\u003c/a>, with gusts touching 100 mph higher in the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Southern California fires remind Swain of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11837188/how-could-this-happen-twice-camp-fire-survivors-who-moved-away-relive-wildfire-trauma\">Camp Fire\u003c/a>, which leveled the town of Paradise near Chico in 2018 and was the deadliest fire in California history, killing 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the same story of what happened in Paradise,” he said. “That occurred in November in Northern California in a very wet part of the state that hadn’t yet received seasonal precipitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swain sees clear links between human-caused climate change — driving extreme dry fuel conditions and record warmth — and the fires raging in Southern California. A warming world means wetter wet periods, hotter temperatures, and more extreme droughts. This flip-flopping, both at the sub-seasonal and interannual levels, will stoke wildfires when ignited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just that drier conditions are perpetually more likely in a warming climate; it’s that this oscillation back and forth between states is something that is particularly consequential for wildfire risk in Southern California,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a warming climate where global emissions continue to rise, he said, “there’s every indication” that the wettest years will become even more soaked, summers will continue to warm, and autumn will get drier, which means that this cycle of Southern California burning could likely be commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How the North-South Disparity in California's Rain Is Good for the Water Supply",
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"content": "\u003cp>A remarkably wet kickoff to Northern California’s rainy season has coincided with a desperately dry fall in Southern California — a huge disparity, perhaps \u003ca href=\"https://weatherwest.com/archives/43171\">unprecedented\u003c/a>, between the haves and have-nots of rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we131b.php\">150 years of record-keeping\u003c/a>. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, much of the northern third of the state has weathered nearly two months of storms, flooding and even tornadoes. Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, has received more rain than nearly any other city in California — nearly two times its average rainfall to date. At the city’s airport, almost 7 inches fell on Nov. 20 alone, an all-time daily record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern California is always wetter than the semi-arid southern half. But the scale of the north-south gap that has persisted for several months has stunned experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been few if any years since 1895 … that have been so much above-normal in the northern part of the state while simultaneously so dry in the south,” Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, wrote in his blog \u003ca href=\"https://weatherwest.com/\">Weather West\u003c/a>. He added, in an email exchange with CalMatters, that “it is likely that the current north-south disparity is record-breaking in magnitude by at least some metrics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This season’s stark imbalance isn’t bad in terms of water supply. That’s because Northern California’s rain and snow feed major reservoirs, which provide much of the water used by Californians. If this occurred in reverse — a wet south and a dry north — most of the water would remain uncaptured, providing little benefit for supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=swccond.pdf\">Snowfall to date (PDF)\u003c/a> has followed a similar pattern, with relatively heavy snowpack accumulating in the northern Sierra Nevada and substantially below-average levels in the southern Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/W7BDQ/3/\" width=\"800\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of Southern California, between Kern County and the borders with Arizona and Mexico, is experiencing \u003ca href=\"https://www.drought.gov/states/california\">moderate to extreme drought\u003c/a> so far this season. The dryness, along with fierce Santa Ana winds, ignited two major fast-moving wildfires in Los Angeles County on Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while the latest forecasts predict dry weather for at least the next 12 days, water suppliers aren’t panicking. They say thanks to ample precipitation two years in a row, their reservoirs and groundwater basins are brimming with water to supply Southern Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of water reliability and water supply at this moment in Southern California, things are looking pretty solid,” said Mike McNutt of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, demand in the district has declined since the 2020 drought year by 23%, McNutt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, average per capita water use has declined sharply \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/\">since the 1990s\u003c/a> in spite of a growing population. Last July, state officials approved controversial and costly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2024/07/california-water-conservation-rules-adopted/\">mandatory conservation rules\u003c/a> that force 405 cities and other urban suppliers serving about 95% of Californians to meet individualized water budgets that decline over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orange County Water District Chief Hydrogeologist Roy Herndon said his agency, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts — multiple years in a row with minimal rainfall. “Three years, no problem. I’d say even five years,” Herndon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which serves 19 million people mostly with imported water — also has an abundance, “with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage,” according to Interim General Manager Deven Upadhyay, who issued a statement last week. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year was the \u003ca href=\"https://ca.water.usgs.gov/california-drought/california-drought-runoff.html\">eighth wettest year\u003c/a> statewide in a century, and 2024 was about average. Now, the state’s largest reservoirs are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-monitor/\">well above their average levels \u003c/a>for this time of year. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest, contained 128% of its average to-date storage as of Jan. 6. Lake Shasta was at 130%. Casitas and Diamond Valley reservoirs, key holding facilities for Southern California’s supply, are both almost full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020122/northern-california-snowpack-much-stronger-start-than-last-year\">snowpack conditions\u003c/a> in the Sierra Nevada are promising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Monday, the Sierra Nevada contained a \u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=swccond.pdf\">snow water equivalent (PDF)\u003c/a> of 103% of average. The northern end of the mountain range is at 150% — a reassuring status since it’s the source of the bulk of the reservoirs. The southern end, however, now holds just two-thirds of its average for early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020772\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020772\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">At right, California Department of Water Resources staff member Andy Reising conducts the first snow survey of the 2025 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada., on Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Nick Shockey/California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Off to a better start this water year than we were last year, but much remains to be seen in terms of how this water year actually ends up,” said David Rizzardo, hydrology section manager of the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency announced in early December that its State Water Project — which serves 750,000 acres of farmland and 27 million people — would be delivering 5% of requested water supplies to local agencies. Later in the month, after November’s atmospheric rivers pummeled Northern California, the department boosted the initial allocation to 15%. The allocation will likely jump again before the rainy season peters out — usually in April or May.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in store for the next three months?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California climatology, only one prediction is downright easy to make: Summers will be dry across most of the state. But California’s winters are extremely variable, and how the next three months — historically the wettest of most years — will unwind is anyone’s guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, a climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources, said a single large storm could change the outlook for Southern California’s water year. But he also observed that most years that have started out so exceptionally dry have stayed dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the ten times on record when Southern California’s coastal region had received less than an inch of rain by New Year’s Day, only once did the water year’s precipitation tally come out above normal, he said. Three of those times, precipitation levels reached almost average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at UC Merced, said an abrupt shift in precipitation patterns into a full-on drought statewide, though not necessarily probable, would not be surprising, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is certainly the California story — bouts of very wet to bouts of very dry, flipping within a single season, flipping year to year, hoping that it evens out in the end,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though it’s essentially a tossup how the rest of the year shapes up, there is a caveat: the onset of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml\">La Niña\u003c/a>. The counterpart to the more prestigious El Niño, La Niña often features dry conditions in Southern California and wetter conditions farther north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander Gershunov, a research meteorologist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said the precipitation patterns seen so far this year, while somewhat consistent with La Niña, are more the “outcome of natural variability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La Niña signals typically don’t kick in until January,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A classic La Niña could draw out current patterns through the remainder of the winter, though Gershunov also leaned toward the possibility that the year would finish up a wet one. Citing 2011, 2017 and 2023, he said, “three of the wettest years this century were La Niña years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California’s dry conditions primed the region to burn. The largest wildfire, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/palisades-fire\">Palisades Fire\u003c/a>, in Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades, grew to more than 3,000 acres within hours, forcing evacuation of tens of thousands of residences and destroying homes. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire \u003c/a>ignited in Altadena, near the San Gabriel Mountains, on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wetter wets and drier dries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Increasingly pronounced weather extremes have been a growing area of interest among scientists and state officials, who frequently cite “weather whiplash” — “wetter wets” and “drier dries” — as one of the most pressing climate-related challenges facing California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mid-winter wildfires are just one potential outcome of this climate pattern. Increasingly erratic and unpredictable water cycles are another. California’s intricate system of reservoirs, canals and pumping stations was built to accommodate winter rainfall followed by a steady flow of snowmelt in the summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our reservoir system was predicated on the notion that much of our water would stay frozen in the mountains for months,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow and water supply expert at the Public Policy Institute of California.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_12020122,news_11986659,science_1935067\"]But the climate that has historically supported this pattern is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hots are getting hotter, dries are getting drier, the wets are getting a lot wetter,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recent press briefing. “You have simultaneous droughts and simultaneous rain bombs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One trend frequently described is that of warmer and shorter winters, compressed from both ends. This causes more precipitation to fall in a shorter period of time, more of it to fall as rain, and more of the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate models suggest that the state’s snowpack — a resource that on average has provided \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/impacts-physical-systems/snow-water-content\">15 million acre-feet of water annually\u003c/a>, or nearly four times the capacity of the state’s largest reservoir — could mostly disappear by the end of the century, when winters may be too warm to support long-lasting snow on all but the highest peaks and ridges in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outlooks for California are a warmer future, where we see that snow line … moving up the hill, towards the end of the century, really leaving that seasonal snowpack to the higher elevations,” Anderson, at the Department of Water Resources, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said the decline of snowpack is happening slowly on average, but with extreme snow drought periods increasingly falling into the bar charts of California history. Notable gaps are seen from 2012 to 2015 and 2020 to 2023 — low-snow periods that could reflect future norms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re facing a future without snowpack, and we’re not ready for that,” Mount said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This shifting hydrology has prompted calls from many water supply advocates for more reservoirs and enlargement of existing ones to capture more water at once. The long-delayed proposed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/02/california-sites-reservoir/\">Sites Reservoir\u003c/a> — one of Newsom’s frequent rallying points — is well into planning stages, and other reservoirs are being enlarged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said relying on such concrete infrastructure enhancements will eventually prove much too costly. The solution, he says, lies underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our best hope is to aggressively start using groundwater for our main storage for the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Underground solutions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That’s not so easy in agricultural areas. Farms use such great volumes of water that it’s impossible to recharge many groundwater basins faster than growers pump it out, especially in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2023/02/california-depleted-groundwater-storms/\">San Joaquin Valley\u003c/a>. Water agencies and state officials are seeking ways to channel floodwaters into gravelly basins where water can rapidly sink in, but logistical and regulatory barriers continue to stifle progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because urban areas use relatively little water compared to farmland, local stormwater capture has made more of a splash. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power captured more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/record-snowpack-dramatically-improves-water-supply-outlook-for-los-angeles/\">108,000 acre-feet\u003c/a> of local stormwater in 2023 — about 20% of its annual demands — and diverted it into groundwater basins. Last year, the agency captured \u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/the-city-of-los-angeles-captures-5-billion-more-gallons-of-stormwater-in-february-2024-than-february-2023/\">41,000 acre-feet\u003c/a> of stormwater in February alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delon Kwan, the department’s assistant director of water resources, said city plans are afoot to increase stormwater capture to 150,000 acre-feet per year by 2035, in part by using urban parks as infiltration grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water recycling systems are another way to help drought-proof California communities. In his 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">water supply strategy (PDF)\u003c/a>, Newsom set a target of 800,000 acre-feet of recycled water by 2030 and 1.8 million acre-feet by 2040. Some cities already reuse wastewater for irrigation or treat it after storing it in aquifers. Now, direct potable reuse — sometimes erroneously called toilet-to-tap — has been \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/12/california-rules-turn-sewage-into-drinking-water/#:~:text=Gavin%20Newsom%20called%20for%20increasing,streams%20and%20the%20deep%20ocean.\">approved \u003c/a>in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said Southern California has made great steps toward improving local water supplies, but climate change could limit the region’s potential for self-sufficiency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As you see increasing aridity in Southern California, with a climate more and more like the Southwest, you’re going to see increasing reliance on water from other areas,” he said. “If you haven’t got water to recycle, it becomes a real problem. If you haven’t got stormwater to capture, it’s a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Some Northern California cities have been soaked with almost twice their average rainfall, while southern cities are bone-dry. This season’s huge — possibly unprecedented — disparity works in favor of the state’s water supplies.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A remarkably wet kickoff to Northern California’s rainy season has coincided with a desperately dry fall in Southern California — a huge disparity, perhaps \u003ca href=\"https://weatherwest.com/archives/43171\">unprecedented\u003c/a>, between the haves and have-nots of rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we131b.php\">150 years of record-keeping\u003c/a>. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, much of the northern third of the state has weathered nearly two months of storms, flooding and even tornadoes. Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, has received more rain than nearly any other city in California — nearly two times its average rainfall to date. At the city’s airport, almost 7 inches fell on Nov. 20 alone, an all-time daily record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Northern California is always wetter than the semi-arid southern half. But the scale of the north-south gap that has persisted for several months has stunned experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There have been few if any years since 1895 … that have been so much above-normal in the northern part of the state while simultaneously so dry in the south,” Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, wrote in his blog \u003ca href=\"https://weatherwest.com/\">Weather West\u003c/a>. He added, in an email exchange with CalMatters, that “it is likely that the current north-south disparity is record-breaking in magnitude by at least some metrics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This season’s stark imbalance isn’t bad in terms of water supply. That’s because Northern California’s rain and snow feed major reservoirs, which provide much of the water used by Californians. If this occurred in reverse — a wet south and a dry north — most of the water would remain uncaptured, providing little benefit for supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=swccond.pdf\">Snowfall to date (PDF)\u003c/a> has followed a similar pattern, with relatively heavy snowpack accumulating in the northern Sierra Nevada and substantially below-average levels in the southern Sierra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/W7BDQ/3/\" width=\"800\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of Southern California, between Kern County and the borders with Arizona and Mexico, is experiencing \u003ca href=\"https://www.drought.gov/states/california\">moderate to extreme drought\u003c/a> so far this season. The dryness, along with fierce Santa Ana winds, ignited two major fast-moving wildfires in Los Angeles County on Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But while the latest forecasts predict dry weather for at least the next 12 days, water suppliers aren’t panicking. They say thanks to ample precipitation two years in a row, their reservoirs and groundwater basins are brimming with water to supply Southern Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of water reliability and water supply at this moment in Southern California, things are looking pretty solid,” said Mike McNutt of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 people in northwest Los Angeles County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, demand in the district has declined since the 2020 drought year by 23%, McNutt said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, average per capita water use has declined sharply \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/\">since the 1990s\u003c/a> in spite of a growing population. Last July, state officials approved controversial and costly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2024/07/california-water-conservation-rules-adopted/\">mandatory conservation rules\u003c/a> that force 405 cities and other urban suppliers serving about 95% of Californians to meet individualized water budgets that decline over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orange County Water District Chief Hydrogeologist Roy Herndon said his agency, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts — multiple years in a row with minimal rainfall. “Three years, no problem. I’d say even five years,” Herndon said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which serves 19 million people mostly with imported water — also has an abundance, “with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage,” according to Interim General Manager Deven Upadhyay, who issued a statement last week. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year was the \u003ca href=\"https://ca.water.usgs.gov/california-drought/california-drought-runoff.html\">eighth wettest year\u003c/a> statewide in a century, and 2024 was about average. Now, the state’s largest reservoirs are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-monitor/\">well above their average levels \u003c/a>for this time of year. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest, contained 128% of its average to-date storage as of Jan. 6. Lake Shasta was at 130%. Casitas and Diamond Valley reservoirs, key holding facilities for Southern California’s supply, are both almost full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12020122/northern-california-snowpack-much-stronger-start-than-last-year\">snowpack conditions\u003c/a> in the Sierra Nevada are promising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Monday, the Sierra Nevada contained a \u003ca href=\"https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=swccond.pdf\">snow water equivalent (PDF)\u003c/a> of 103% of average. The northern end of the mountain range is at 150% — a reassuring status since it’s the source of the bulk of the reservoirs. The southern end, however, now holds just two-thirds of its average for early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020772\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020772\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/010225-Snow-Survey-DWR-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">At right, California Department of Water Resources staff member Andy Reising conducts the first snow survey of the 2025 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada., on Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Nick Shockey/California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Off to a better start this water year than we were last year, but much remains to be seen in terms of how this water year actually ends up,” said David Rizzardo, hydrology section manager of the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency announced in early December that its State Water Project — which serves 750,000 acres of farmland and 27 million people — would be delivering 5% of requested water supplies to local agencies. Later in the month, after November’s atmospheric rivers pummeled Northern California, the department boosted the initial allocation to 15%. The allocation will likely jump again before the rainy season peters out — usually in April or May.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in store for the next three months?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California climatology, only one prediction is downright easy to make: Summers will be dry across most of the state. But California’s winters are extremely variable, and how the next three months — historically the wettest of most years — will unwind is anyone’s guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, a climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources, said a single large storm could change the outlook for Southern California’s water year. But he also observed that most years that have started out so exceptionally dry have stayed dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the ten times on record when Southern California’s coastal region had received less than an inch of rain by New Year’s Day, only once did the water year’s precipitation tally come out above normal, he said. Three of those times, precipitation levels reached almost average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at UC Merced, said an abrupt shift in precipitation patterns into a full-on drought statewide, though not necessarily probable, would not be surprising, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is certainly the California story — bouts of very wet to bouts of very dry, flipping within a single season, flipping year to year, hoping that it evens out in the end,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though it’s essentially a tossup how the rest of the year shapes up, there is a caveat: the onset of \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml\">La Niña\u003c/a>. The counterpart to the more prestigious El Niño, La Niña often features dry conditions in Southern California and wetter conditions farther north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander Gershunov, a research meteorologist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said the precipitation patterns seen so far this year, while somewhat consistent with La Niña, are more the “outcome of natural variability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La Niña signals typically don’t kick in until January,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A classic La Niña could draw out current patterns through the remainder of the winter, though Gershunov also leaned toward the possibility that the year would finish up a wet one. Citing 2011, 2017 and 2023, he said, “three of the wettest years this century were La Niña years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Southern California’s dry conditions primed the region to burn. The largest wildfire, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/palisades-fire\">Palisades Fire\u003c/a>, in Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades, grew to more than 3,000 acres within hours, forcing evacuation of tens of thousands of residences and destroying homes. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/eaton-fire\">Eaton Fire \u003c/a>ignited in Altadena, near the San Gabriel Mountains, on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Wetter wets and drier dries\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Increasingly pronounced weather extremes have been a growing area of interest among scientists and state officials, who frequently cite “weather whiplash” — “wetter wets” and “drier dries” — as one of the most pressing climate-related challenges facing California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mid-winter wildfires are just one potential outcome of this climate pattern. Increasingly erratic and unpredictable water cycles are another. California’s intricate system of reservoirs, canals and pumping stations was built to accommodate winter rainfall followed by a steady flow of snowmelt in the summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our reservoir system was predicated on the notion that much of our water would stay frozen in the mountains for months,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow and water supply expert at the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the climate that has historically supported this pattern is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hots are getting hotter, dries are getting drier, the wets are getting a lot wetter,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recent press briefing. “You have simultaneous droughts and simultaneous rain bombs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One trend frequently described is that of warmer and shorter winters, compressed from both ends. This causes more precipitation to fall in a shorter period of time, more of it to fall as rain, and more of the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate models suggest that the state’s snowpack — a resource that on average has provided \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/impacts-physical-systems/snow-water-content\">15 million acre-feet of water annually\u003c/a>, or nearly four times the capacity of the state’s largest reservoir — could mostly disappear by the end of the century, when winters may be too warm to support long-lasting snow on all but the highest peaks and ridges in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outlooks for California are a warmer future, where we see that snow line … moving up the hill, towards the end of the century, really leaving that seasonal snowpack to the higher elevations,” Anderson, at the Department of Water Resources, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said the decline of snowpack is happening slowly on average, but with extreme snow drought periods increasingly falling into the bar charts of California history. Notable gaps are seen from 2012 to 2015 and 2020 to 2023 — low-snow periods that could reflect future norms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re facing a future without snowpack, and we’re not ready for that,” Mount said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This shifting hydrology has prompted calls from many water supply advocates for more reservoirs and enlargement of existing ones to capture more water at once. The long-delayed proposed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/02/california-sites-reservoir/\">Sites Reservoir\u003c/a> — one of Newsom’s frequent rallying points — is well into planning stages, and other reservoirs are being enlarged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said relying on such concrete infrastructure enhancements will eventually prove much too costly. The solution, he says, lies underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our best hope is to aggressively start using groundwater for our main storage for the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Underground solutions\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>That’s not so easy in agricultural areas. Farms use such great volumes of water that it’s impossible to recharge many groundwater basins faster than growers pump it out, especially in the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2023/02/california-depleted-groundwater-storms/\">San Joaquin Valley\u003c/a>. Water agencies and state officials are seeking ways to channel floodwaters into gravelly basins where water can rapidly sink in, but logistical and regulatory barriers continue to stifle progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because urban areas use relatively little water compared to farmland, local stormwater capture has made more of a splash. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power captured more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/record-snowpack-dramatically-improves-water-supply-outlook-for-los-angeles/\">108,000 acre-feet\u003c/a> of local stormwater in 2023 — about 20% of its annual demands — and diverted it into groundwater basins. Last year, the agency captured \u003ca href=\"https://www.ladwpnews.com/the-city-of-los-angeles-captures-5-billion-more-gallons-of-stormwater-in-february-2024-than-february-2023/\">41,000 acre-feet\u003c/a> of stormwater in February alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Delon Kwan, the department’s assistant director of water resources, said city plans are afoot to increase stormwater capture to 150,000 acre-feet per year by 2035, in part by using urban parks as infiltration grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water recycling systems are another way to help drought-proof California communities. In his 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/Initiatives/Water-Resilience/CA-Water-Supply-Strategy.pdf\">water supply strategy (PDF)\u003c/a>, Newsom set a target of 800,000 acre-feet of recycled water by 2030 and 1.8 million acre-feet by 2040. Some cities already reuse wastewater for irrigation or treat it after storing it in aquifers. Now, direct potable reuse — sometimes erroneously called toilet-to-tap — has been \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/12/california-rules-turn-sewage-into-drinking-water/#:~:text=Gavin%20Newsom%20called%20for%20increasing,streams%20and%20the%20deep%20ocean.\">approved \u003c/a>in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount said Southern California has made great steps toward improving local water supplies, but climate change could limit the region’s potential for self-sufficiency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As you see increasing aridity in Southern California, with a climate more and more like the Southwest, you’re going to see increasing reliance on water from other areas,” he said. “If you haven’t got water to recycle, it becomes a real problem. If you haven’t got stormwater to capture, it’s a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Winds Raise Extreme Fire Risk in Southern California, But Bay Area Is Spared by Rain",
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"content": "\u003cp>Much of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> will be hit by strong winds this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the swift gusts could cause power outages and damage trees, fire risk isn’t on the radar of local first responders. As Southern California prepares for dangerous fire conditions, Northern California will almost certainly be spared any late-season blazes, thanks to rainy months at the end of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of a series of rainfall events just back to back, and then we had our atmospheric over a while ago … even though we are going into a drier weather pattern, the fuels aren’t of concern right now,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this week’s winds pose a significant fire risk in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, “there is virtually zero risk of a dangerous wildfire in Northern California,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said during his YouTube livestream Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just too damp,” he continued. “In fact, Northern California will benefit from a period of finally sunny and drier conditions after a very wet spell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s thanks to the “precipitation dipole,” which has affected the state since the fall. Northern California has had multiple rainy weeks, while in Southern California, “conditions have been bone dry,” Swain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12020122 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/NS1_9754-1020x619.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impacts of the winds there will likely affect people as much as a big rainstorm, Swain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Certain roads will be closed to public access to prevent potential fire ignitions. Hundreds of thousands, if not perhaps over a million people, could end up seeing power outages through a combination of preemptive safety shut-offs to reduce risk or actual unintended power outages,” Swain said. “There will be a lot of downed trees. Hopefully, not too many downed power lines, but that’s a real risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All in all, a pretty challenging situation for Southern California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, 20- to 30-mph winds blowing north to northeast will likely bring a welcome temperature hike and could clear up some of the dense fog many people woke up to Monday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the NWS is urging people in the Bay Area to prepare. A wind advisory has been issued for Tuesday and early Wednesday for the higher-elevation areas of the North, East, and South Bays, as well as the San Francisco Peninsula, where gusts could reach 50 mph and cause power outages or traffic disruptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oudit recommends that people secure outdoor objects, such as umbrellas and outdoor furniture; charge electronic devices; and check social media and the National Weather Service website for updates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Strong winds could down trees and cause power outages in the Bay Area, but fire risk is almost nonexistent thanks to recent rain. It’s a far different story in Southern California.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Much of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> will be hit by strong winds this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the swift gusts could cause power outages and damage trees, fire risk isn’t on the radar of local first responders. As Southern California prepares for dangerous fire conditions, Northern California will almost certainly be spared any late-season blazes, thanks to rainy months at the end of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of a series of rainfall events just back to back, and then we had our atmospheric over a while ago … even though we are going into a drier weather pattern, the fuels aren’t of concern right now,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this week’s winds pose a significant fire risk in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, “there is virtually zero risk of a dangerous wildfire in Northern California,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said during his YouTube livestream Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just too damp,” he continued. “In fact, Northern California will benefit from a period of finally sunny and drier conditions after a very wet spell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s thanks to the “precipitation dipole,” which has affected the state since the fall. Northern California has had multiple rainy weeks, while in Southern California, “conditions have been bone dry,” Swain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impacts of the winds there will likely affect people as much as a big rainstorm, Swain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Certain roads will be closed to public access to prevent potential fire ignitions. Hundreds of thousands, if not perhaps over a million people, could end up seeing power outages through a combination of preemptive safety shut-offs to reduce risk or actual unintended power outages,” Swain said. “There will be a lot of downed trees. Hopefully, not too many downed power lines, but that’s a real risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All in all, a pretty challenging situation for Southern California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, 20- to 30-mph winds blowing north to northeast will likely bring a welcome temperature hike and could clear up some of the dense fog many people woke up to Monday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the NWS is urging people in the Bay Area to prepare. A wind advisory has been issued for Tuesday and early Wednesday for the higher-elevation areas of the North, East, and South Bays, as well as the San Francisco Peninsula, where gusts could reach 50 mph and cause power outages or traffic disruptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oudit recommends that people secure outdoor objects, such as umbrellas and outdoor furniture; charge electronic devices; and check social media and the National Weather Service website for updates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "northern-california-snowpack-much-stronger-start-than-last-year",
"title": "Northern California Snowpack Off to a Much Stronger Start Than Last Year",
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"content": "\u003cp>The snowpack near \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/lake-tahoe\">Lake Tahoe\u003c/a> is far larger than it was at the start of 2024 but still short of the average for this time of year, California water officials said Thursday in the first manual snow survey of the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, conducted at Phillips Station in the northern \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/tag/sierra-nevada\">Sierra Nevada\u003c/a>, recorded snow more than three times deeper than what the California Department of Water Resources recorded at the same station this time last year. That figure also represents 91% of the average for previous surveys done at this point in the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, California’s snowpack is just above the average for this time of year and at 39% of the average for April 1, which is when officials expect to see peak levels for the year before \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991866/californias-normal-winter-and-high-snowpack-could-curb-wildfire-risk-prevent-drought\">spring snowmelt and runoff\u003c/a> begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So off to a better start this water year than we were last year. But much remains to be seen in terms of how this water year actually ends up,” said David Rizzardo, a manager with the Department of Water Resources’ Hydrology Section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s snowpack was aided by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015534/bay-area-record-breaking-rainfall-deluge-surprises-forecasters\">strong atmospheric river\u003c/a> in November and some \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12019330/bay-area-braces-days-rain-clear-christmas\">storms in December\u003c/a> that brought heavy rain and mountain snow, Rizzardo said, but the state has a ways to go before it can hope to match yearly peak levels. A strong start to the water year doesn’t necessarily mean a strong finish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020175\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020175\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Department of Water Resources staff (from left) Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, State Hydrometeorologist, Manon von Kaenel, Water Resources Engineer, Andy Reising, Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit Manager, and Jordan Thoennes, Water Resources Engineer, conduct the first media snow survey of the 2025 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada in El Dorado County, Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Sara Nevis/California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In January 2022, for example, the statewide snowpack was looking even deeper than this year and well ahead of the average for early January, seemingly indicating the state was on track for a very wet year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The statewide number was 147% of average, 15.5 inches of water content … which decreased all the way down to 10.3 inches by April 1,” Rizzardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12020076 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/GettyImages-1253748945-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the year started strong, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1978337/with-snowpack-in-decline-californias-weather-whiplash-could-mean-alternating-drought-and-flooding\">snowpack peaked on Feb. 1\u003c/a>, months earlier than usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After January, “we only really gained less than an inch, at our peak, in water content, and then there was a steady decline all the way down to April 1,” Rizzardo said. “Really not the pattern we hope to see in any given year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials can’t be sure whether this year will result in an early disappointing peak or a strong finish with lots of snowmelt to fill state reservoirs. But there are some signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, a state climatologist, said over the next few weeks, a high-pressure weather system will form and strengthen just off the coast of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pressure system will push storms north, meaning most of the state, except perhaps Northern California, won’t get much rain for a couple of weeks in what should be the wettest period of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Taking two weeks off does limit the opportunities for catching up,” Anderson said. “The stock records say it’s not unheard of, but it’s not likely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The snowpack near \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/lake-tahoe\">Lake Tahoe\u003c/a> is far larger than it was at the start of 2024 but still short of the average for this time of year, California water officials said Thursday in the first manual snow survey of the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, conducted at Phillips Station in the northern \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/tag/sierra-nevada\">Sierra Nevada\u003c/a>, recorded snow more than three times deeper than what the California Department of Water Resources recorded at the same station this time last year. That figure also represents 91% of the average for previous surveys done at this point in the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Statewide, California’s snowpack is just above the average for this time of year and at 39% of the average for April 1, which is when officials expect to see peak levels for the year before \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991866/californias-normal-winter-and-high-snowpack-could-curb-wildfire-risk-prevent-drought\">spring snowmelt and runoff\u003c/a> begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So off to a better start this water year than we were last year. But much remains to be seen in terms of how this water year actually ends up,” said David Rizzardo, a manager with the Department of Water Resources’ Hydrology Section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s snowpack was aided by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12015534/bay-area-record-breaking-rainfall-deluge-surprises-forecasters\">strong atmospheric river\u003c/a> in November and some \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12019330/bay-area-braces-days-rain-clear-christmas\">storms in December\u003c/a> that brought heavy rain and mountain snow, Rizzardo said, but the state has a ways to go before it can hope to match yearly peak levels. A strong start to the water year doesn’t necessarily mean a strong finish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020175\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020175\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/SN2_3790-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Department of Water Resources staff (from left) Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, State Hydrometeorologist, Manon von Kaenel, Water Resources Engineer, Andy Reising, Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit Manager, and Jordan Thoennes, Water Resources Engineer, conduct the first media snow survey of the 2025 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada in El Dorado County, Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Sara Nevis/California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In January 2022, for example, the statewide snowpack was looking even deeper than this year and well ahead of the average for early January, seemingly indicating the state was on track for a very wet year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The statewide number was 147% of average, 15.5 inches of water content … which decreased all the way down to 10.3 inches by April 1,” Rizzardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the year started strong, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1978337/with-snowpack-in-decline-californias-weather-whiplash-could-mean-alternating-drought-and-flooding\">snowpack peaked on Feb. 1\u003c/a>, months earlier than usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After January, “we only really gained less than an inch, at our peak, in water content, and then there was a steady decline all the way down to April 1,” Rizzardo said. “Really not the pattern we hope to see in any given year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials can’t be sure whether this year will result in an early disappointing peak or a strong finish with lots of snowmelt to fill state reservoirs. But there are some signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, a state climatologist, said over the next few weeks, a high-pressure weather system will form and strengthen just off the coast of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pressure system will push storms north, meaning most of the state, except perhaps Northern California, won’t get much rain for a couple of weeks in what should be the wettest period of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Taking two weeks off does limit the opportunities for catching up,” Anderson said. “The stock records say it’s not unheard of, but it’s not likely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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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.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "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
},
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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": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"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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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
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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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