Where is the '+1" button?
Sorry, I know it’s picky, but it’s “Santa Ana.” I ignored it the first time, but I thought you would like to know.
I do. Sadly I googled it on my phone before I typed it and still got it wrong. Add blurry vision to the list of age.
Southern California Edison said Thursday that “its equipment may be associated with the ignition of the Hurst Fire,” and an investigation continues.
Mayor Bass fires Fire Chief Crowley.
Don’t often get to use the word ‘fire’ twice in a row!
Blame game. Blame global warming not the fire chief. Besides, a lot of that fire was in LA County jurisdiction or City of Malibu , not LA city jurisdiction.
Note that the Mayors team had cut the Fire chiefs budget-
“The $17 million budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did and has and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair our apparatus,” Crowley told CNN in January. Over 100 fire apparatuses were out of service and 62 more fire stations were needed, Crowley said. The department had a 55% increase in calls since 2010, but not enough firefighters to respond, she said.
Surely Trump will want to be very generous?
Morrisey (gov of WV) has asked trump for a lesser amount due to the severe flooding. So far it’s been crickets and WV was called for trump before the ballots started getting counted.
Insurance companies want some “modest” rate increases because of the wildfires:
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara met with State Farm executives in Oakland on Wednesday to discuss the company’s emergency request for a rate hike and its future in the state. State Farm has requested a 22 percent statewide increase for homeowners, 15 percent for renters and condo owners, and 33 percent for rental owners to offset expected $7.6 billion in wildfire-related losses.
While Lara said he hopes to make a decision within two weeks, he also pushed for assurances that State Farm would expand coverage in California if allowed to raise rates.
On top of a maybe $5000 premium, that can be a lot.
It can be, but relative the the value of many homes in California, a few thousand isn’t too painful. The risk pool these insurance companies have developed is now experiencing higher risk, so naturally they want to increase reserves to cover the increased risk. That’s how insurance works. When one home burns down the risk pool wont feel a thing by paying out what the policyholder is owed, but when a whole town burns down that can drain the risk pool entirely (which appears is what has occurred), leaving everyone else in the pool not affected by the disaster vulnerable if their home, neighborhood, or town burns down.
How does reinsurance fit in?
State Farm has been trying to get such a rate increase approved even before the latest fires.
I know people who were dropped completely by their insurers in the past year or who had their rates suddenly double, forcing them onto the California FAIR Plan. But when FAIR says it’s “basic fire coverage”, they mean it. People I know who are making FAIR Plan claims now are having a notably worse time of it all than people with commercial insurance providers.
The California Insurance Commissioner’s moratorium on policy cancellations in our area means we’ll at least have our same coverage for one more policy cycle, and hopefully our insurer appreciates that our fire risk is now reduced for a few years at least. But, I expect our property to be upgraded (downgraded?) to “Very High Risk” in updated fire assessment maps, so who knows.
It’s the same basic story everywhere.
The various regulators or government re-insurers have held insurance premiums far lower than makes sense for decades. Meanwhile the risks go up and the cost to repair damage does the same.
A sudden recalibration of premiums now to the actual cost of covering the actual value at risk and the actual likelihood of a claim would economically devastate a vast amount of US real property and their owners. We’re all waking up at once to the realization we’re way, way, waaay out on an unsustainable limb here.
Another big plaintiff steps forward: LA County Sues Edison
What went wrong the night Altadena burned: A Washington Post analysis shows that some officials knew of the fire’s westward spread hours before evacuation orders were sent to residents in western Altadena.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/interactive/2025/altadena-wildfire-destruction-eaton-fire/
Non-paywalled repost
Thus several deaths could have been avoided with earlier evacuation notices.
I saw a story on CBS 60 Minutes wherein a Pacific Palisades homeowner’s interior was laden inside with leaded ash. Yet the owner’s fire insurance provider denied a claim because her house was not at all burnt. I reckon the law needs an update.
I’ve long argued that all insurance should be all-perils insurance. Otherwise companies are effectively competing on the basis of writing sneaky terms excluding risks to enable the lowest price.
Clearly insurance that always paid in full no matter what would be far more expensive than what we’re used to. OTOH, millions of people would not be left in the lurch every year by what amounts to bait and switch.
That situation is a direct consequence of a concrete set of events. A homeowner sued a small insurance company a while ago after a wildfire in northern California. The case concluded soon after the Palisades and Eaton fires, which is terrible timing. When you read the court report, you find that the homeowner was being rather obnoxious about it all, but yet their complaint led to a court ruling that can reasonably be interpreted as “personal property that has ash or soot on it isn’t damaged.” Some insurance companies immediately took that to mean that one could empty a front loader of dirt or even toxic debris on someone’s stuff and claim that the stuff is perfectly unharmed and not insurance’s problem. The California insurance commissioner quickly put out a statement saying, “The state does not believe this court ruling means insurance companies don’t have to pay covered damages for ash and soot deposits.” And some insurance companies have laughed at the thought that the state can say anything of the sort, given that it’s a question for the courts at present.
In my case, we are fortunate that our insurance company has not tried to pull that one on us (yet). We have many other battles with them, but not this one.
I appreciate what you wrote with all it entails. I saw you alluded to deleterious effects on your own property so am here for you Pasta with heart in hand.