As hundreds of Los Angeles residents return to find homes reduced to ashes due to a devastating wave of wildfires, many are fearful that their insurance policies may not cover the rebuild cost and that future premiums will be astronomical.
Reuters contacted nine of the top home insurance companies in California for comment.
State Farm, Nationwide, Allstate, Mercury, Liberty Mutual and Farmers responded with statements saying they were working with policyholders to help them make claims, without addressing specific concerns about residents not receiving sufficient payouts or rising future premiums.
After the fires this week, California insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, invoked moratorium powers to suspend all policy non-renewals and cancellations from insurance companies for one year, reports Reuters.
Lara said in a statement on Friday that next week he will host free insurance workshops in Santa Monica and Pasadena, suburbs close to the two biggest fires.
US insurance stocks slid on Friday as analysts estimated the insurance costs from the wildfire could top $20bn. Private forecaster, AccuWeather, estimated the damage and economic loss from the fires at $135bn to $150bn, portending soaring homeowners’ insurance costs.
Pope Francis is praying for victims and rescuers trying to control the wildfires in California that have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of homes, the Vatican said on Saturday.
“His Holiness Pope Francis assures you and the community affected by this tragedy of his spiritual closeness,” said a statement sent on the pope’s behalf to the archbishop of Los Angeles, José H Gómez.
Expressing “heartfelt condolences for those who mourn their loss”, Francis also offered prayers “for the relief efforts of emergency services personnel” and imparted “his blessing to all as a pledge of consolation and strength in the Lord”.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian “who may have been impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires”, a spokesperson for the department said.
In a statement, the spokesperson added that owing to privacy obligations, they are unable to provide further comment.
The spokesperson said that the consulate-general in LA is continuing to monitor the wildfires in California, including news on evacuation orders and warnings. “We encourage Australians to keep informed and stay safe by following the advice of local authorities and subscribe to Smarttraveller for updates.”
Newsom says he is 'not interested in politicising a natural disaster', wants Trump to visit and 'understand the magnitude' of wildfires
Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has said he is “not interested in politicising a natural disaster” and wants the president-elect, Donald Trump, to “visit and understand the magnitude of this scope, and what happened to the American people that happen to reside here in California”.
Newsom shared a video on X of an interview he had done in which he said the following:
Do the right thing. This is an emergency.
We can do all this dance and we have differences of opinion as it relates to all kinds of issues and values, and you know, that’s fair game. That’s important. That dialectic is important.
But having this kind of friction when it comes to emergency response with emergency responders, these heroes, 12,000 that are on the frontlines right now? Taking care of people, making sure people are still alive … we’re still doing emergency maintenance and evacuation. We’re still concerned about flare ups and spotting.
You’ve got kids right now – they don’t have money for baby formula and we’re trying to get them disaster assistance. You have folks in hotel rooms that have money only for tonight and don’t know what’s going to happen – haven’t even had a chance to see their homes – here, it’s standing or here and it’s not standing.
We want to get them emergency assistance over the course of the next 18 months. That’s why I was with the Fema (Federal Emergency Management Agency) director today, and that’s what the president of the United States and I are talking about. And I’d like to have that conversation with the next president of the United States.
Let’s turn the page as it relates to the new, incoming president. We’d like him to have the spirit of the current president and have the backs of people so we can recover. I want him to visit and understand the magnitude of this scope, and what happened to the American people that happen to reside here in California.
I’m not interested in politicising an event like this. I don’t like the banality of it. I don’t like the inhumanity of that.
I would like people to focus on a collaboration between the executive in Washington DC and in the state of California to help rebuild a community that’s been completely ravaged.”
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In the coastal community of Pacific Palisades, Greg Benton surveyed where he lived for 31 years, hoping to find his great-grandmother’s wedding ring in the wreckage.
“We just had Christmas morning right over here, right in front of that chimney. And this is what’s left,” he said, pointing to the blackened rubble that was once his living room. “It’s those small family heirlooms that are the ones that really hurt the most,” he told an Associated Press (AP) reporter.
Elsewhere in the city, people at collection sites picked through cardboard boxes of donated items.
The level of devastation is jarring even in a state that regularly confronts massive wildfires.
Anna Yeager told the AP that she and her husband agonised over going back to their beloved Altadena neighbourhood near Pasadena after fleeing with their six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son, their two dogs and some clothes. A neighbour told them their house was gone.
Now she regrets not grabbing her children’s artwork, her husband’s treasured cookbooks, family photos, and jewellery from her mum, who died in 2012, and her husband’s grandmother, who survived Auschwitz.
When the couple returned, they saw blocks of only “chimney after chimney”.“Power lines everywhere. Fires still going everywhere” she said, adding that when they walked up to their home “it was just dust.”
Yeager’s neighbourhood of Tudor homes was planning to celebrate its 100th anniversary in May. “You build a world for yourself and your family, and you feel safe in that world and things like this happen that you cannot control,” she said. “It’s devastating.”
There were remnants of the front porch where Yeager had photographed her children nearly daily since 2020 and had planned to keep doing that until they reached high school. That gave her hope.
“The porch is still there and it’s to me, it’s a sign to rebuild and not leave,” she said. “You know, it’s like saying, ‘Hey, I’m still here. You can still do this.’”
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LA Fire Department issues new immediate evacuation
The LA Fire Department issued a new immediate evacuation order at 7pm (local time) on Friday for the Palisades fire. It affects the following areas:
It covers Sunset Boulevard north to Encino Reservoir; and from the 405 Freeway West to Mandeville Canyon.
The area was previously under an evacuation warning, but is now an immediate evacuation order.
Earlier, US officials declared a public health emergency due to the from the California fires.
The LA Department of Public Health said it had declared a local health emergency and issued a public health officer order in response “to the widespread impacts of the ongoing multiple critical fire events and windstorm conditions”. The order applies to all areas of Los Angeles county.
In a statement, the department said:
The fires, coupled with strong winds, have severely degraded air quality by releasing hazardous smoke and particulate matter, posing immediate and long-term risks to public health.
It advises anyone who must go outside in smoky conditions for long periods of time in areas with heavy smoke or where ash is present to wear an N95 or P100 mask.
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The government has not yet released figures on the cost of the damage, but private firms have estimated it will climb into the tens of billions. The Walt Disney Co. announced on Friday it will donate $15m to respond to the fires and help rebuild, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The flames hit schools, churches, a synagogue, libraries, boutiques, bars, restaurants, banks and local landmarks like the Will Rogers’ western ranch house and a Queen Anne-style mansion in Altadena that dated back to 1887 and was commissioned for wealthy mapmaker Andrew McNally.
Firefighters on Friday afternoon had made progress for the first time on the Eaton fire north of Pasadena, which has burned more than 7,000 structures. Officials said on Friday most evacuation orders for the area were lifted.
LA mayor, Karen Bass, who faces a critical test of her leadership as her city endures its greatest crisis in decades, said several smaller fires also were stopped.
Crews earlier on Friday had been gaining ground on the Palisades fire, which burned 5,300 structures and is the most destructive in LA’s history.
California National Guard troops arrived on the streets of Altadena before dawn to help protect property in the fire evacuation zone, and evening curfews were in effect to prevent looting after several earlier arrests.
Allegations of leadership failures and political blame have begun and so have investigations, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Governor of California, Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered state officials to determine why a 117 million-gallon (440 million-litre) reservoir was out of service and some hydrants ran dry, calling it “deeply troubling.”
Meanwhile, Los Angeles fire chief, Kristin Crowley, said city leadership failed her department by not providing enough money for firefighting. She also criticised the lack of water. “When a firefighter comes up to a hydrant, we expect there’s going to be water,” she said.
At least 11 people have been killed, with five from the Palisades fire and six from the Eaton fire, according to the LA County medical examiner’s office. Officials said they expected that number to rise as cadaver dogs go through leveled neighbourhoods to assess the devastation to an area larger than San Francisco.
Officials on Friday set up a centre where people could report those missing. Tens of thousands of people remained under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 56 square miles (145 square kilometers).
Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex have been assisting José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK) to distribute meals in Pasedena, California.
According to reports, Harry and Meghan have made donations to the California wildfires’ relief efforts through their Archewell Foundation and have shared resources through their Sussex.com platform.
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Since the flames erupted in and around Los Angeles, scores of residents have returned to their still smoldering neighbourhoods even as the threat of new fires persisted and the nation’s second-largest city remained unsettled, reports the Associated Press (AP).
For some, it was a first look at the staggering reality of what was lost as the region of 13 million people grapples with the gargantuan challenge of overcoming the disaster and rebuilding.
Calmer winds enabled firefighters to start gaining some control of the biggest blazes in metropolitan LA on Friday before gusty weather returns over the weekend to an area that has not seen rain in more than eight months. But by Friday evening, new evacuations were ordered in an area that includes part of Interstate 405 after a flare up on the eastern side of the Palisades fire.
Bridget Berg, who was at work when she saw on TV her house in Altadena erupt in flames, came back for the first time with her family two days later “just to make it real.”
Their feet crunched across the broken bits of what had been their home for 16 years, reports the AP.
Her kids sifted through debris on the sidewalk, finding a clay pot and a few keepsakes as they searched for Japanese wood prints they hoped to recover. Her husband pulled his hand out of rubble near the still-standing fireplace, holding up a piece of petrified wood handed down by his grandmother.
“It’s OK. It’s OK,” Berg said as much to herself as others as she took stock of the destruction, remembering the deck and pool from which her family watched fireworks. “It’s not like we just lost our house – everybody lost their house.”
Since the fires first began popping up around a densely populated, 25-mile (40-kilometer) expanse north of downtown LA, they have burned more than 12,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles. No cause has been identified yet for the largest fires.
Private forecaster AccuWeather has estimated the damage and economic loss at $135bn to $150bn, portending an arduous recovery and soaring homeowners’ insurance costs, Reuters reports.
California Insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara called on insurers on Friday to suspend pending non-renewals and cancellations that homeowners received before the fires began and to extend the grace period for payments.
President Joe Biden has declared the fires a major disaster and said the US government would reimburse 100% of the recovery for the next six months. In a call with Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom on Friday, he reiterated his pledge to provide California with resources to fight the blazes and rebuild.
Biden told an Oval Office briefing:
This is not going to be over, even when all the fires are out, it’s just going to be beginning ... so we’re going to be around a long while to help.
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Here are some of the latest images coming in from Los Angeles via the news wires.
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Weather forecasters in Los Angeles are expecting fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel the devastating wildfires.
As our latest full report details, urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning as five fires raged across the city.
Barbara Bruderlin, the head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the fires as “total devastation and loss”.
There are areas where everything is gone. There isn’t even a stick of wood left. It’s just dirt.
The psychological toll from the wildfires on a traumatized Los Angeles county of nearly 10 million people has yet to be assessed.
Reuters reports that Pacific Palisades residents who ventured back to their devastated neighborhoods were shocked to find brick chimneys looming over charred waste and burnt-out vehicles as acrid smoke lingered in the air.
“This was a house that was loved,” Pacific Palisades resident Kelly Foster, 44, said while combing through the ashy rubble where her house once stood as smoke rose from neighboring homes and planes dropped water nearby.
Foster’s 16-year-old daughter, Ada, said she tried to get inside but “I just became sick. I just couldn’t even... Yeah, it’s hard.”
In Rick McGeagh’s Palisades neighborhood, only six of 60 homes survived, and all that remained standing at his ranch house was a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Everything else is ash and rubble,” said McGeagh, 61, a commercial real estate broker, who, along with his wife, raised three children at their home.
On Friday morning, hundreds of people streamed into a parking lot near the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena for donated clothing, diapers and bottled water.
Denise Doss, 63, said she was anxious to return to her destroyed home in Altadena to see if anything was salvageable, but officials stopped her due to safety concerns. Doss said:
At least to say goodbye until we can rebuild. I will let God lead me.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the California wildfires that have devastated six neighborhoods of Los Angeles county, killed at least 11 people and damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures.
Firefighters finally started gaining control over two major wildfires on the eastern and western flanks of Los Angeles on Friday as fierce winds that supercharged the fires for days eased.
With thousands of people suddenly homeless and the thickening smoke leading US officials to declare a public health emergency, firefighters said they were making progress in arresting the Palisades fire on the western edge of the city and the Eaton fire in its foothills, Reuters reported.
After burning out of control for days, despite the efforts of hundreds of firefighters attacking the blazes from the air and on the ground, the Palisades fire was 8% contained and the Eaton 3%. Cal Fire had listed containment levels of both fires at 0% until Friday. Even so, the two big fires combined had consumed 35,000 acres (14,100 hectares) or 54 square miles.
About 153,000 people remained under evacuation orders and another 166,800 faced evacuation warnings, with a curfew in place for all evacuation zones, Los Angeles county sheriff Robert Luna said.
Seven neighboring states, the federal government and Canada have rushed aid to California, bolstering aerial teams dropping water and fire retardant on the flaming hills and crews on the ground attacking fire lines with hand tools and hoses.
Six wildfires are currently raging in Los Angeles county. They included at last count:
The Palisades fire, at 21,317 acres and 8% containment
The Eaton fire, at 13,690 acres and 3% containment
The Kenneth fire, at 1,052 acres and 50% containment
The Hurst fire, at 771 acres and 37% containment
The Lidia fire, at 395 acres and 98% containment
The Archer fire, at 19 acres and 0% containment
In other developments:
Six deaths have been confirmed in the Eaton fire and five in the Palisades. As family members have been alerted to the loss of their loved ones, six of the victims have been publicly identified. Law enforcement officials expect the death toll to rise once weather and fire conditions allow cadaver dogs and detectives into the burn zones.
Conditions in the Los Angeles area were forecast to improve through the weekend, with sustained winds slowing to about 20mph (32km/h), gusting between 35-50mph, according to the National Weather Service, a respite from recent wind gusts of 80mph. “It’s not as gusty, so that should help firefighters,” NWS meteorologist Allison Santorelli said, adding that conditions were still critical with low humidity and dry vegetation.
Forecasters predicted another red flag warning would be issued for Monday.
Fire chief Kristin Crowley criticised city officials over water supply issues and budget cuts that she says hindered her department’s ability to fight the Palisades fire. The water supply has become a focal point, with California governor Gavin Newsom calling for an investigation into the shortage.
Newsom has invited Donald Trump to visit the state and tour the LA wildfires’ devastation. Trump visited the state six years ago in the wake of the Camp fire, the most destructive fire in California history, which hit the town of Paradise.
The state of California issued a one-year moratorium preventing insurance companies from canceling or refusing to renew home policies in zip codes impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Fire agencies are investigating whether Southern California Edison’s utility infrastructure sparked a brush fire that is still burning in a Los Angeles suburb, SCE said on Friday, adding no determination has been made. SCE, a unit of US utility Edison International, said in a filing to its regulators that a downed conductor was discovered at a tower associated with its Eagle Rock – Sylmar 220 kV circuit. “SCE does not know whether the damage observed occurred before or after the start of the fire,” it said.
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