“One Year After the L.A. Fires: Hope, Blame and Debt”

HARI SREENIVASAN: Bianna, thanks. Shawn Hubler, thanks so much for joining us. You know, unfortunately it has become standard now for people to hear about, essentially fire season in California. And every year you’ll see some headlines and so forth. Here we are a year after some of the biggest fires. But help our audience kind of put in perspective what happened last year with the Eaton Fire and the Palisades fire. How significant were they?

SHAWN HUBLER: In a lot of ways it was kind of a perfect storm, what happened last year. It was…wildfire is not unusual in California. It happens. The place in many ways is built to burn. But the, these fires were just, they were just next level, really they were. It felt as if the entirety of Los Angeles was on fire all at once. It had scarcely rained for about six months before the fires broke out. So it was very dry last year. On top of that, there had been several years of rain, particularly wet years. So there was a lot of vegetation. On top of that, the Santa Ana winds, which are famous here, had been kind of supercharged by an upper atmospheric condition that had had, you know, really made them even, it had turned them into extreme, really extreme winds. (04:43): And on top of that, I mean, Los Angeles just generally is a place where…there’s a housing shortage. There are a lot of houses and neighborhoods and communities that have built up in areas that are fire prone. The, so there were a lot of homes and human fuel in these areas that, that were near wildlands. And so the Palisades are on the coast near the Santa Monica Mountains. The Eaton fire took place in an area where there are a lot of communities in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was…you know, peak, you know, really peak fire conditions.

SREENIVASAN: The numbers in your story are staggering. This is, these fires tragically killed 31 people. They destroyed 13,000 homes, 16,000 buildings. I mean, as someone who has seen and covered disasters in California — earthquakes, wildfires — had, had you seen anything like this?

HUBLER: I’ve seen a lot of disaster in California. It’s unfortunate but true. And these were, as I said, these were next level. This as I…Los Angeles burns. But not this much of it at once. There were 12 fires scattered in this, you know, for, in this firestorm across the, across the region. The firefighters here were stretched at one point across five fires at one time. And not just regular fires. These are, you know, big, big wildfires. And there the burn scars — there are, are cover a total area of about 80 square miles. The, it’s a, it’s an area of about three times — for reference — about three times the size of Manhattan. So no. I haven’t seen anything in Los Angeles quite like this. This was a historic fire. The Eaton and Palisade Fire are among the most destructive fires in state history at this point.

SREENIVASAN: You know, in your piece you and your team wrote, “One Year After the LA Fires: Hope, Blame and Debt,” was the title of it. You write, “More than 70% of residents who were displaced remain so, while four out of 10 fire survivors have taken on debt, and almost half have wiped out much of their savings, according to the most recent survey by the Department of Angels, a nonprofit advocacy group for survivors of the LA wildfires.” I mean, but put that num — those numbers and those people, and kind of in perspective here, when you’re talking about block after block and house after house completely gone, you also are pointing out in this story some significant inequities: one neighbor has the ability to rebuild and the other does not.

HUBLER: I mean if you can imagine in Los Angeles in particular, houses are not just, they’re not just shelter. They’re repositories of people’s life savings. And — so, so for a lot of folks, their retirement was tied up in these houses, you know. Their — some of them inherited the you know, property that and so on. So it’s an, an extreme loss for almost anyone. And even in, even including people of means for that matter. It takes, it takes a long, long time to rebuild after a disaster often. And a lot of folks had issues with insurance with, with re — you know under-insurance with you know, houses that were uninhabitable because of toxic smoke contamination. And, you know, there’s been an issue with federal disaster assistance not coming in. (10:04): There have been a lot of reasons why rebuilding has taken an especially long time. 

But, and, and honestly, I have to say, I, we were looking for signs that the Palisades, which is richer, would be rebuilding more quickly than say, Altadena, which is more middle, middle class, middle income. But at the moment both of them, both of them look a lot alike. Only a handful of houses in either place have been rebuilt to the point where people can actually move back into them. We anticipate that that will change in, in the coming year, though. It’s, it’s likely that for a lot of folks whose insurance covers living expenses, things like that, that insurance coverage is gonna run out. And those folks are gonna have to decide, you know, whether to cut their losses or whether to pay, continue to pay out of pocket and, and worsen their debt, so… 

SREENIVASAN: Yeah, you talked to some people that are literally watching their neighbor’s home get rebuilt, but because of paperwork requirements, they’re not seeing a dime and they’re actually hemorrhaging their life savings.

HUBLER: My colleague Jill Cowen interviewed one family that, their home, they lived in Altadena. Their home was damaged by wind and, and, and asbestos contamination. That’s a big problem across the, across the basin. And, they can’t move in without extensive remediation. Their insurance company hasn’t paid their living expenses ’cause of disputes over the documentation. Their  — and while they haggle their, this family is paying about $3,000 a month, which is about average, for a two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. They’re, they’re living with their son, their dog, the woman’s grandmother — or mother, rather. The, the husband’s employer has lost a client. They, because of the fire. He’s working two hours away. And they’ve maxed out their savings. They’ve maxed out their credit cards. They’re looking at about $30,000 in back mortgage that they have to pay when their forbearance ends. And, you know, so this, this kind of a story, by the way, is not uncommon. As awful as it sounds, it isn’t just this one family. We heard story after story like this about people who are just really at the end of their rope.

SREENIVASAN: So, we’ve talked a little bit about the human costs. The fires are apparently responsible for $131 billion in property and capital losses. State officials have asked the federal government for about $40 billion, but the federal government hasn’t kicked that back. I mean, it’s only been about 6 billion. So what is the Trump administration’s reasoning for withholding any of the funds?

HUBLER: Well initially the Trump administration seemed willing to, to, to help and promised to help. And early on, the fires broke out before the president took office and so initially there, there was money to rebuild, about $6 billion kind of flowed to the state for rebuilding. But, you know, the Trump administration has taken a, a kind of different approach to emergency management and, and disaster aid. In the past communities that have been hit by disasters and, and states, have relied on the federal government for these kind of really big ticket costs that to cover things like infrastructure and school rebuilding and roads, and, you know, and long-term assistance. And, and not just in California, but in, in other disaster areas as well. The, the administration has been kind of seeking to shift those costs less toward the federal government and more, more toward the states, more toward the, the communities themselves. And so the aid has been slower to flow in, in a lot of places. 

The reasoning isn’t entirely clear, but, you know what it’s translated into in California is about a year long lag for this money. And it’s become a real point of contention. There’s a sense that kind of a growing sense that, that the deteriorated relationship between Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s a Democrat and a leader in the Democratic Party, and, and the president has, you know, has played into it, that it’s, that the, that relationship isn’t, you know, what it was during his first term. But that, but just generally speaking, there’s a different policy toward disaster aid from this administration. In any case, the money has been really slow to flow.

SREENIVASAN: So was that any different at the end of the Biden administration versus how the Trump administration is responding to the state’s requests?

HUBLER: Oh, yeah. The Biden administration was very quick to sign emergency orders and declarations and to help financially.

SREENIVASAN: You know, in, in that year, now, we have seen also a re-characterization of the people who — right after the fires, let’s say, the LA Fire Department authorities, they were kind of hailed as heroes for getting some of this stuff done. And now we’ve have legal proceedings against almost every part of the chain of exactly who’s responsible. Was there a reservoir that should have been filled more? Where should the fire department have staged people in places earlier? What did they know? When did they know it?

HUBLER: Yeah, there’s a lot of blame. One of the one, one of the issues that’s come out of this fire is the extent to which human error, you know, may have factored into making it worse than it otherwise would’ve been. And one of the things about wildfire is that you have to put them out early, otherwise, when they catch on, they’re, they’re all very, very difficult — almost impossible — to put out. And, and there’s just been a lot of blame to go around. 

The Palisades Fire, for example, it is, has an investigation, has found that it was a rekindle. That it was, that it was caused because of smoldering embers from a fire the week before, that the fire department thought it had put out, but it hadn’t. It had burned kind of underground in the wildland. And then when the wind started to stir it, it had rekindled and, and, and burned into the city there. (19:30): That’s an issue. There are issues around whether enough engines that were pre-deployed in the area, whether a shift of about a thousand firefighters could have been held over and wasn’t. There was a reservoir that was offline for repairs that was owned by the city. Why did that happen? The mayor was out of the country on a diplomatic trip at the time the fire broke out. She hurried back. But people in the Palisades didn’t really support her to begin with, and they really haven’t forgiven her since. 

The, you know, in Altadena the evacuations were late in, in parts of town. And all but one of the people who died there died in a a in that area where the Black community had built up this, this neighborhood. And so there’s a lot of, a lot of anger there. There are serious questions about that. Plus, there have been questions for the insurance commissioner. There are complaints that the state has not held the line on insurers, and there are complaints also, as I said earlier, about the Trump administration and the federal money not arriving yet. So there’s a lot of, a lot of blame, a lot of, a lot of anger.

SREENIVASAN: Are there systems that have now been held accountable, that have been made better? I mean, there was a recent report that it said that, “While the frontline responders acted decisively, and in many cases heroically in the face of extraordinary conditions, the events underscored the need for clearer policies, stronger training, integrated tools, and improved public communication.”
You know, the LA fire department themselves said, look, I mean this, they’re basically saying that this isn’t all just our fault. “They reflect leadership decisions, legacy systems, and longstanding structural constraints.” So in the wake of something like this, have those kinds of changes been made where if something like this were to happen again, that we would respond better, faster, save more lives?

HUBLER: Yeah, that kind of change is very difficult. It sounds easy, but it’s not. There’s a housing crunch in Los Angeles. One big lesson from the fires would naturally be, don’t build near the wildland. But these communities are, you know, decades, hundreds, you know, they’re, they’re old communities. They’ve been there for a long time. There’s, are we going to take away, as I said, the life savings of these thousands of people and not, not allow houses near the near high fire zones? A lot of Los Angeles County is in a high fire zone. So that’s an issue. 

Even even smaller things like building a fire break around your house. There’s a push on the state level to make people build, not not have landscaping within five feet of their house here. Even that, it’s gotten a lot of pushback. People don’t wanna give up their shade trees, don’t wanna give up their English gardens. I mean, the single family homes in Southern California, that’s the California dream. It’s sacrosanct and people don’t wanna give it up in a lot of ways. So that’s an issue. 

It’s easier said than done. As for the leadership, this is an election year. The mayor is up for reelection. She’s got two challengers at least, who’ve lost homes in the Palisades fire. The…there are investigations, there are at least a half a dozen investigations into these fires, into, so, Who did what, when? Who knew what, when? Who dropped, might have dropped the ball or made an error?  And there’s also a growing appreciation, I think, though, that there’s, that these kinds of disasters are, have gotten worse. I mean, the swings in climate have gotten worse, and so they’re something we’re gonna have to face more often. 

SREENIVASAN: Yeah, I, I was saying, you know, when you talk about hurricane force winds on the California coastline, while there are fires raging, I mean, how much of this just could have been a fluke incident that, yes, our climate is changing and our fires are getting worse, but that there might not have been a way to predict or prepare for something so massive at the same time?

HUBLER: There’s a strong argument just to say that, that, that it could have been predicted. I mean, the weather service was predicting weeks in advance that this wind was about to kick up. And there’s a strong understanding of red flag conditions here. I mean, now, Los Angeles, if, if it understands anything here, people here understand fire. They know fire weather. It’s a fair point that, that the leadership here should have seen it coming. And, and, and some leaders, you know, did see it coming, and the preparation sort of varied across the board that way. 

There’s as for it being a fluke, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s going to be that. I mean, the climate scientists that we’ve spoken to tell us that, you know, the, as you know, that the dries are drier and the wets are wetter here, and the, (24:55) and the conditions that, that kind of conspired to create, you know, to, to nurture this, this disaster are likely to happen again. So the, the question though is how adept are we going to become at, at fighting these fires and what are, what kind of resources are we gonna put into it, and, and how much are we willing to sacrifice?

SREENIVASAN: You’ve got the Olympics coming in a couple of years. 

HUBLER: Right. 

SREENIVASAN: And I’m wondering whether LA will have recovered by then. Is it on pace now to get better in a year?

HUBLER: We’ll see. A lot of Los Angeles, as I said, is not in the burn scar. That’s the good news, from an Olympic standpoint.  You know, it, it’s it’s, it’s a matter of first and foremost money and support. But it’s also just a problem of morale, too. I mean, the fires have really, they were a gut punch, I think, to Los Angeles and not, you know, not just in the, not just in the burn scars. The Luskin School at UCLA, did a poll in the spring, and it just showed how widespread…how widespread the impact of the fires, how, how widely felt they were, and across southern California, so many people knew someone who had lost a home or were, you know, had employed someone who had, who had been displaced by the fire or had lost business because of it. And so it was a, it’s been a pretty widely felt thing. And in that respect, it was comparable to the Northridge earthquake, and, and, and in other widespread disasters like that. 

SREENIVASAN: The Los Angeles Bureau Chief for the New York Times, Shawn Hubler, thanks so much for joining us.

HUBLER: Thank you.