When the fires started burning in Los Angeles this month, firefighters from around the country streamed into California to help, including Kelly Martin.
Kelly has been fighting wildfires and advocating for the health of firefighters for years. She co-founded the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, was Chief of Fire and Aviation at Yosemite National Park, has chaired two National Wildfire Coordinating Group programs and has just completed a six-year term as a Board Member of the International Association of Wildland Fire with her final two years as President.
She has spent many years fighting fires in California but, she admits, she has never seen anything like this. “It is really beyond anything that I have seen in my career…it looks almost apocalyptic is some areas, I think that is a fair assessment.”
The freeze includes all federal agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the United States Forest Service (USFS), and the United States Department of the Interior (DOI), triggering worries among the nation’s wildland firefighters as record-breaking fires burn Los Angeles and just months before peak wildfire season begins. Many wildland firefighters who recently accepted job offers took to the internet to ask whether the offer will now be revoked.
“As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law,” Trump’s order said. “This freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.”
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a memorandum to each executive department and agency head moments after Trump’s order. The memorandum offers some insight into the exemptions of Trump’s order, namely an exemption of seasonal employees.
“Appointment of seasonal employees and short-term temporary employees necessary to meet traditionally recurring seasonal workloads, provided that the agency informs its OMB Resource Management Office in writing in advance of its hiring plans,” the memorandum said.
While some assumed the seasonal employee exemption covered wildland firefighters, confusion arose when USDA sent out its own memo a day later that said no exceptions applied to the department.
“At this time, there are no exceptions to the hiring freeze with respect to the Department of Agriculture (USDA),” the USDA memo obtained by WildfireToday said. “Accordingly, effective immediately, agencies and offices are not authorized to extend an offer of employment to any person. Persons to whom an offer of employment has been extended, but acceptance has not been received, shall be contacted immediately and be informed that the offer has been revoked.”
WildfireToday asked the USFS for clarity on whether wildland firefighter positions were exempt. The service referred us to the following statement from a USDA spokesperson:
“USDA is reviewing all the Executive Orders signed by President Trump and expects to share guidance on implementing them to agencies and mission areas as soon as possible.”
A DOI spokesperson told WildfireToday that it and the National Park Service are implementing Trump’s freeze across the federal civilian workforce. Officials are waiting for a report to be released by OMB and the newly-formed non-federal Department of Government Efficiancy (DOGE) within 90 days of Trump’s executive order to determine next steps.
This isn’t the first time a federal-wide hiring freeze enacted by Trump caused mass confusion for wildland firefighters. He ordered a similar freeze in 2017 after he took office.
“The (2017) exemption specifically allows the Forest Service to move forward with hiring wildland firefighting resources, such as individual firefighters and specialists,” reporting from the Flathead Beacon said. “Other positions that were exempt in the USDA decision include law enforcement and disaster preparedness-related personnel in multiple agencies, food inspectors and medical officers in the Food Safety and Inspection Service and cyber security personnel in multiple agencies.”
This is a developing situation. WildfireToday will share updated guidance once it is released by USDA officials.
A series of wildfires in Los Angeles County have caused widespread devastation in California, including at least 24 deaths and the destruction of more than 12,000 homes and structures. Thousands of residents have been evacuated, and the danger isn’t over yet.
Some estimates have put the cost of the damage and economic loss at between A$400 billion and A$450 billion, of which only A$32 billion is insured.
This is a stark illustration of the insurance protection gap – the difference between insured and uninsured losses. As California rebuilds, it means the bill for uninsured losses will fall on the property owners themselves and public funds.
These catastrophic fires should ring alarm bells in Australia, where global ripple effects are likely to force up our own insurance premiums. Most importantly, we must grapple with and prepare for the grim prospect of our own similar disaster.
In response to growing risk, escalating insurance claims, and rising reinsurance and construction costs, at least a dozen of the largest property insurers, making up 80% of the Californian market, have withdrawn from offering wildfire coverage or have restricted new policies.
In March 2024, State Farm, the United States’ largest property insurer, announced it would not be renewing about 72,000 policies in selected California postcodes deemed too risky to insure for wildfire.
For insurers, it’s simply becoming too expensive to do business in California.
What are the other options?
This has led to surging demand for alternative protection options. One, the California FAIR Plan, is a state-legislated collaboration between insurers.
The FAIR plan exists to provide a wildfire policy for those who have had policies refused by other insurance companies. But it’s a deliberately “bare-bones” policy.
Homeowners who want cover for additional structures, for theft and liability, or for other perils need to buy an additional top-up.
Residential payouts are capped at US$3 million (A$4.8 million), leaving many people underinsured.
Demand for the California FAIR Plan has skyrocketed since 2019, up 164%.
This increased demand for protection and the billions of dollars in loss we’ve just seen have raised concerns these wildfires may bankrupt California’s insurer of last resort.
The insurance protection gap is not unique to California. Some 15% of Australian households already face extreme insurance stress – a situation in which it costs four weeks or more of pretax income to buy an insurance policy.
Palisades Fire via Cal Fire
Insurance for insurers
Premiums in Australia may soar even higher after the LA wildfires. Here’s why.
To cover large-scale losses like the 2022 floods in Australia, insurance companies buy a reinsurance policy in the global market. Essentially, they take out their own large insurance policies to help pay out the mass claims after a disaster.
The cost of global reinsurance capital goes up around the world as risk rises, losses increase, and the costs of reconstruction rise. Reinsurance payments for wildfire in California will therefore create a ripple effect in all insurance markets.
The global reinsurance market isn’t the only thing likely to push premiums higher in Australia. There’s also our own climate uncertainty and increasing risk of disaster.
Future extreme weather and the losses it may cause are becoming harder to predict. Where uncertainty rises, so do premiums, as insurers and reinsurers increase their capital reserving for potential losses.
Alarmingly, California’s crisis is a reminder that wildfires are not just a problem in rural areas or on the fringes of cities. Furthermore, these losses can even occur in winter, not just during the “wildfire season”.
A timely warning
Australia may have been fortunate enough to avoid a catastrophic citywide fire so far. But the intensification of bushfire seasons could ultimately create a similar insurance crisis here.
In 2019, the Gospers Mountain mega-blaze came dangerously close to advancing on Sydney’s urban heart. A timely southerly wind change held it back.
It pays to check your coverage
What are the implications of this disaster for Australian insurance policyholders? Are there any meaningful actions we can take?
First, insured Australians should check what their policy covers and what is excluded. Greater clarification over exclusions was recommended in a recent parliamentary inquiry into the 2022 floods.
Meanwhile, policyholders should review the terms and conditions in their product disclosure statement (PDS). If you’re unsure about what a particular policy covers, contact your insurer prior to renewal.
Beyond checking or upgrading coverage, Australians can take steps to make their homes more bushfire resilient.
Last year, the Resilient Building Council partnered with the federal government to launch a free app homeowners can use to assess their fire resilience and earn premium reductions from participating insurers by making improvements.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Leadership Committee has announced the recipients of the Paul Gleason “Lead By Example” award.
The award was created by the NWCG to remember Paul Gleason’s contributions to the wildland fire service and as a pioneer in wildfire safety. The intent of this award is to recognize individuals or groups who exhibit this same spirit and who exemplify the wildland fire leadership values and principles.
This year’s recipients are:
• Sam Bowen, Mark Twain Veteran Crew Superintendent, U.S. Forest
Service (Initiative & Innovation)
• Greg Titus, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge Zone Fire Management
Officer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Mentoring & Teamwork)
• Renae Crippen, Blue Mountain Interagency Dispatch Center Manager,
U.S. Forest Service (Motivation & Vision)
• Eric Carlson, OMNA International Instructor (Lifetime Achievement)
Congratulations to all!
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group was established in 1976 to provide national leadership in the US to enable interoperable wildland fire operations among federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial partners.
For more information about the winners and more about the NWCG go to: Lead by Example Awards
Multiple wildfires burned throughout the United Kingdom on July 19, the most destructive of which destroyed 40 properties in the village of Wennington near England’s capital. The firefighting conditions were “absolute hell,” in part due to the historic heatwave suffocating the region.
Before the 2022 fire outbreak, UK officials didn’t see wildfires as something that happened at home, despite a growing body of research signaling an increase in fire-weather days throughout the country in the near future. The nation currently has no entity responsible for governing wildfire risk reduction and the majority of residents have a fire-averse attitude akin to the United States’ pre-1971 no-burn policy.
The increasing frequency of wildfires gives local advocates both hope and anxiety about the future of disaster preparation within the UK. While the problem is becoming more obvious, continuing inaction has left some believing nothing tangible will happen until the nation experiences massive loss of life or property.
Wennington wildfire. Credit: Harrison Healy via Wikimedia Commons.
Victoria Amato was, in many ways, the perfect person to bridge the UK and US wildfire movement. The Britain native has been developing community wildfire protection plans in the US for the past 18 years with SWCA Environmental Consultants. A presentation to UK officials in the wake of the 2022 wildfires showed her how the nation needed to develop a resilience program soon.
“It quickly became evident that there’s so much of what we do here in the US that would translate to some of the needs that the UK is facing,” Amato told Wildfire Today. “We wanted to create a conduit for some of that information sharing.”
The UK Community Wildfire Resilience Framework for Property Protection became that conduit. The paper acts as an entry point for both officials and community residents on how, and why, to safeguard the nation’s infrastructure against wildfire using case studies from the US and Canada.
The researchers believed that focusing specifically on property protection would incentivize government officials to take the growing threat seriously. Local communities have largely been the only entities safeguarding against wildfire danger, with multiple rural areas establishing Fire Operation Groups (FOGs). However, the groups are largely comprised of multiple agencies and are guided by different priorities and objectives.
“We had to show the UK government that we were focused on something that will protect life and property, since that’s what’s going to get attention politically,” Amato said. “They could also point to data and show most that most wildfires in the UK are associated within those rural-urban interface areas, and that’s where they could actually get some traction.”
Wennington wildfire. Credit: Harrison Healy via Wikimedia Commons.
The in-depth nature of the framework provides numerous achievable actions officials can take now to protect communities. However, Amato said she and the other researchers she worked with believe they’ll face many hurdles before substantive changes are made, including too few economic and personnel resources, residential lack of engagement, code-adoption resistance, a lack of unified governance and messaging, and little relevant science and baseline data.
Despite the potential hurdles, Amato believes the framework’s best practices will act as a spark to further change.
“We presented it with the intent of introducing the paper (to wildfire stakeholders in the UK),” Amato said. “Now we need to get it out with a wider distribution.”
The UK Community Wildfire Resilience Framework was presented to the UK Wildfire Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland in November last year. Amato spoke to the framework with fellow authors Linda Kettley from Firewise UK and Fiona Newman Thacker from Wageningen University and Research.
Many of the fires in southern California remain active but there is no shortage of views on what went wrong or right, what could or couldn’t be done, who is to blame and what do we all do now?
Wildfire Today is keen to find the most important lessons to be learnt from these fires.
Terms like “unprecedented” and “unpredicted” are not helpful – especially when we have seen it before and knew it could happen again. Those term take away responsibility and action. They excuse the fact that things could have been done, by many.
Dr Marty Alexander, long time Canadian wildland fire researcher, has reminded Wildfire Today of the 1974 publication by Clive M. Countryman, “Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations be Stopped?”.
Countryman was at the time of writing a wildland fire behavior scientist with the USDA Forest Service in southern California. His paper was a reflection of the 1970 fire season in California where 16 people died and more than 200 000 hectares of land burned, and around 700 homes lost.
His statement on The Fire Problem barely differs from today:
Climate, fuels, topography and people create fire problems
Relatively few fires become conflagrations
Conflagrations are most frequent during Santa Ana winds
Suppression of Santa Ana fires is difficult
His other conclusions include:
Fire prevention has limited value
Firefighting techniques and equipment and not adequate
His solutions then rely on a range of fuel modification measures.
For more nostalgia, watch these 1971 newsreels – on the same topic, same problem:
Having looked back to see what we already know, Wildfire Today now turns to finding a way through new wildfire challenges.
Here are some tough questions for starters:
Evacuations
To have a large fire in such a heavily populated area with so few deaths or injuries is extraordinary. This suggests the evacuation process was largely successful – people were moved out of harms way. And yet we saw those abandoned vehicles on narrow mountainous roads that funnelled people onto Palisades Drive and Sunset Boulevard , panicked residents fleeing on foot, bulldozers shunting cars off the road to gain access for fire fighting vehicles – that’s not how an orderly evacuation is meant to work, that is last-minute, panicked fleeing. There are many international examples of disorderly evacuations going horribly wrong.
Is there are better way to get thousands of people out of the way of a fast moving wildfire? If evacuations occur well before the flames arrive that would help. But how early do you do early evacuations? When is it too late to leave? Where do 100,000 people evacuate to?
Suppression
As Carpenter noted in 1971 we need to all understand that once a fire gets to this size under these conditions all attempts to simply put it out are futile. The focus is on protecting people and strategic assets. The fire fighters on the ground and in the air understand this. Does the wider community understand this?? Does this explain all the anger that “someone should have done something”, and the thinking that if it wasn’t for a few empty hydrants and grounded aircraft (due to high winds) the fire would have been suppressed?
Fuel management
Many, many others since Carpenter have said you have got to better manage the fuels if you want to have any chance of managing the fire. What does good fuel management look like in southern California and when do we know that we have done enough? Would have it made a difference for these fires when it looks more like an urban conflagration with house to house burning?
Built environment
Are we living in the wrong places? If we know that wildfires are inevitable, why do we build homes in the middle of the highest wildfire risk areas? Any other day, it is clearly a wonderful place to live. But on days like 7 January 2025, this place was hell on earth. Do we place faith in the development of “fireproof” structures, or do we just accept that homes will burn?
Recovery
Once the emergency response phase settles and the debris is cleared, what does long term recovery look like? How do we build back better without just repeating the same mistakes? How does a community put aside the blame and divisions to work together on building long term resilience, and be ready for the next, inevitable, big fire?
There have been many articulate voices in the last few days with this Los Angeles Times article one of the better ones. It draws on wildfire researcher Jack Cohen, who encourages us to abandon our thoughts that this was a wildland fire and see it more as an urban fire that leapt from house to house, and fire historian Stephen Pyne who places today’s fire within a century of fires across a whole continent: