After submitting the debris removal article in early January 2025, "Wildfire Recovery: The Critical Role of Debris Removal Coverage," the horrific Los Angeles area wildfires, driven by Santa Anna winds, broke out. This wildfire event will likely be the largest in structure values and recovery costs in California and US history. The images of the destruction of these fires reminded me of the earlier wildfires featured in the companion article, except it became apparent that the scale of this fire would be much greater than the Colorado wildfires discussed.
Even though I only witnessed the images on television, social media, and
various print media, it just proved my earlier point that a picture is worth a thousand
words. The images reminded me of my first visit to the Waldo Canyon Fire destruction in
the Mountain Shadows neighborhood of Colorado Springs more than 13 years ago. The
pictures also reminded me that the burned structures were more than just a statistic.
They represented the loss of thousands of homes and many businesses that their owners
had poured their life energies into to make a home or a livelihood. Having faced the
three Colorado wildfire aftermaths, it was quickly evident that these fires were much
more extensive and would create many recovery challenges, beginning with the debris
removal process.
Astronomical Damage
This massive debris removal process will create unique logistical and environmental challenges in America's second-largest metropolitan urban area. Although the number of structures lost is not finalized, the current figures suggest more than 12,500 structures lost compared to 347 in Waldo, 500 in Black Forest, and 1,086 in Marshall. Math provides the daunting debris removal task facing the recovery teams in California, which will likely be 12 times more complex and include other challenges not experienced in the Colorado wildfires. The overwhelming first debris removal task will add time for the recovery and rebuild for most homeowners, considering it took almost 8 months to complete the Colorado cleanup using private- and public-funded removal contractors.
The sheer scale of destruction will strain local resources in unprecedented ways. LA County's landfills, typically equipped to handle regular municipal waste, now face the prospect of processing millions of tons of fire debris. This includes structural remains, thousands of burned vehicles, hazardous materials, and contaminated soil that require specialized handling and disposal protocols. This raises so many questions.
How far does this material need to go for disposal?
How will the debris removal affect residents whose houses were not destroyed?
Will the disposal add to the local transportation gridlock or increase safety concerns for pedestrians in the area?
Will local officials insist on strict compliance with hazardous waste disposal, which adds time and cost to the cleanup?
Are there enough local contractors licensed to do this cleanup promptly?
These are some of the many questions that public entities must
address before private or public cleanup begins.
Where To Begin?
The first step in this debris removal process is to secure the
area and identify known hazards that need to be mitigated before reopening it to
homeowners and removal contractors. The postfire liability hazards are significant,
so each property owner must take steps to reduce these potential hazards. Two early
steps are to fence each property and to minimize the spread of any hazardous
chemicals.
Based on the topography of the burned areas, reducing the likelihood of flash flooding is critical because burn scars are more vulnerable to flooding after a significant wildfire event. This work should be done in close collaboration with community emergency managers who have more expertise in identifying and mitigating flooding exposures following wildfires. Property owners exposed to flooding should consider purchasing a separate flood policy after considering any additional potential loss from a flood incident.
Wildfire survivors should consider sifting through the ashes and debris on their property to find any surviving contents. In the Colorado wildfires, the Samaritan's Purse offered this service at no cost to survivors. Many homeowners wanted to use free sieves offered by local hardware stores. People doing their sifting should wear masks, gloves, hard-sole shoes, and other protective clothing to minimize injury to themselves. They should also limit their expectations of finding many unburned objects, but most survivors found some items from the ashes, which made the effort worthwhile and gave them closure. Despite its emotional impacts, whole families and their friends participated in this task. They found items that they either could save or incorporate in some way into their newly rebuilt home. Their stories of this task mark another early milestone in the recovery process because it now focuses them more squarely on the future work of rebuilding.
Who Pays for Debris Removal?
Another early hurdle is determining who will pay for the debris
removal. In the three fires discussed in my earlier article, "Wildfire Recovery: The Critical Role of Debris Removal
Coverage," the admitted insurance companies were the primary source of
debris removal funding. Most admitted insurer homeowner policies and many excess and
surplus lines policies provide 5 percent of the dwelling and personal property
limits for debris removal expenses, which usually suffices to cover these costs.
However, the new California FAIR Plan personal lines policies do not have this additional coverage, so any debris removal costs will be deducted from the policy amount purchased. This necessity will further erode the insurance proceeds from the FAIR Plan, which the policyholders need to rebuild. A FAIR Plan claims FAQ is available to help insureds navigate the claims process.
A debris removal program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will assist these insureds by doing the cleanup. How or if the sponsoring local entity managing the FEMA cleanup could recover insurance proceeds for this group of homeowners is unknown.
A significant variable in this debris removal process is the number of totally uninsured or underinsured folks who will have no benefits to do this cleanup except for the FEMA program. Finally, businesses that experienced total losses have a fixed dollar amount in their commercial policies, which is likely insufficient to cover their debris removal process, so they will likely benefit from the FEMA cleanup program.
What To Expect
Because of the scale and the multiple political entities impacted by the fire, debris removal management is a necessary early component of how smoothly this task will proceed. In everyday life, buildings are demolished following set permitting and construction procedures. However, it is not customary to face removing and cleaning for over 10,000 properties. Therefore, it is critical to streamline the permitting and inspection processes and to attempt standardization of the removal process between political units.
A substantial public relations and education process is also associated with this process. Many people do not realize that the government or any third party cannot just walk onto your property and begin the cleanup unless there is an immediate threat. Based on the Colorado wildfire experiences, the amount of education and paperwork necessary to start the cleanup is substantial, so simpler processes will pay dividends in the recovery process. Such systems must accommodate private removal contractors, the FEMA-type removal project, and perhaps self-cleanup for those residents who wish to do their removal for economic reasons.
Finally, who decides which communities are cleaned first, and why does it matter? It matters because the first areas cleaned can begin the rebuild earlier, which is a worthy objective. However, with a limited supply of contractors, property owners ready to proceed can contract with a builder, reducing the number of builders available to reconstruct new homes. In the Colorado setting, the average rebuilding time was approximately 8–9 months. Considering the daunting number of homes destroyed in the LA fire, this limited supply and excess demand for construction services will slow the overall recovery unless creative processes and methods are developed to overcome them.
Early Takeaways
As I write this supplemental article, I recognize that these wildfires are not fully contained, so it isn't easy to speculate on the outcome of the initial cleanup and eventual recovery. However, if you factor in the prior wildfire debris removal experiences for which communities are usually less prepared and consider this event the largest US wildfire event, the challenges ahead for the political entities, communities, and residents are likely uncharted territory. Therefore, a critical early mission for this recovery is to plan a streamlined, rapid cleanup by collaborating with all the stakeholders and ensuring it is entirely and thoroughly communicated. Its outcome will be measured by speed and getting the communities and survivors focused on rebuilding their homes and businesses.
When I started my wildfire recovery endeavor 13 years ago, I never imagined that a catastrophic wildfire in the second-largest American city could be 30 times worse than that experienced in Colorado. Like the others, this fire will undoubtedly provide a real-world laboratory for facilitating postcatastrophe losses. It is fashionable in today's world to find fault for behaviors that may have led to the catastrophe, and it is critical to stay positive and collaborative in approaching this fire's recovery.
Each insurance professional should recognize that our colleagues in the LA area are facing this daunting learning experience today, but tomorrow, it could be us. That is why it is critical for us to relearn our trade as it relates to natural disasters and to continuously advocate for new and better ways to help policyholders navigate this new world of extreme catastrophes. It is time to commit to using our collective voices to find better solutions through better risk management techniques or risk financing tools. It is not the time to sit back and make excuses, find fault, or wait for someone else to fix it.
Finally, please take another look at the pictures of the LA wildfire aftermath and lock that image into your consciousness as the best reason to find better solutions to help these fellow Americans who will likely be displaced for at least the next 2 years or more. As insurance professionals and humans, it is essential to see and experience the human dimension of these events. Indeed, these horrific visuals are real-world reminders for me of the critical mission we have in preparing our customers for such catastrophes.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI. Expert Commentary articles and other IRMI Online content do not purport to provide legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinion. If such advice is needed, consult with your attorney, accountant, or other qualified adviser.
After submitting the debris removal article in early January 2025, "Wildfire Recovery: The Critical Role of Debris Removal Coverage," the horrific Los Angeles area wildfires, driven by Santa Anna winds, broke out. This wildfire event will likely be the largest in structure values and recovery costs in California and US history. The images of the destruction of these fires reminded me of the earlier wildfires featured in the companion article, except it became apparent that the scale of this fire would be much greater than the Colorado wildfires discussed.
Even though I only witnessed the images on television, social media, and various print media, it just proved my earlier point that a picture is worth a thousand words. The images reminded me of my first visit to the Waldo Canyon Fire destruction in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood of Colorado Springs more than 13 years ago. The pictures also reminded me that the burned structures were more than just a statistic. They represented the loss of thousands of homes and many businesses that their owners had poured their life energies into to make a home or a livelihood. Having faced the three Colorado wildfire aftermaths, it was quickly evident that these fires were much more extensive and would create many recovery challenges, beginning with the debris removal process.
Astronomical Damage
This massive debris removal process will create unique logistical and environmental challenges in America's second-largest metropolitan urban area. Although the number of structures lost is not finalized, the current figures suggest more than 12,500 structures lost compared to 347 in Waldo, 500 in Black Forest, and 1,086 in Marshall. Math provides the daunting debris removal task facing the recovery teams in California, which will likely be 12 times more complex and include other challenges not experienced in the Colorado wildfires. The overwhelming first debris removal task will add time for the recovery and rebuild for most homeowners, considering it took almost 8 months to complete the Colorado cleanup using private- and public-funded removal contractors.
The sheer scale of destruction will strain local resources in unprecedented ways. LA County's landfills, typically equipped to handle regular municipal waste, now face the prospect of processing millions of tons of fire debris. This includes structural remains, thousands of burned vehicles, hazardous materials, and contaminated soil that require specialized handling and disposal protocols. This raises so many questions.
These are some of the many questions that public entities must address before private or public cleanup begins.
Where To Begin?
The first step in this debris removal process is to secure the area and identify known hazards that need to be mitigated before reopening it to homeowners and removal contractors. The postfire liability hazards are significant, so each property owner must take steps to reduce these potential hazards. Two early steps are to fence each property and to minimize the spread of any hazardous chemicals.
Based on the topography of the burned areas, reducing the likelihood of flash flooding is critical because burn scars are more vulnerable to flooding after a significant wildfire event. This work should be done in close collaboration with community emergency managers who have more expertise in identifying and mitigating flooding exposures following wildfires. Property owners exposed to flooding should consider purchasing a separate flood policy after considering any additional potential loss from a flood incident.
Wildfire survivors should consider sifting through the ashes and debris on their property to find any surviving contents. In the Colorado wildfires, the Samaritan's Purse offered this service at no cost to survivors. Many homeowners wanted to use free sieves offered by local hardware stores. People doing their sifting should wear masks, gloves, hard-sole shoes, and other protective clothing to minimize injury to themselves. They should also limit their expectations of finding many unburned objects, but most survivors found some items from the ashes, which made the effort worthwhile and gave them closure. Despite its emotional impacts, whole families and their friends participated in this task. They found items that they either could save or incorporate in some way into their newly rebuilt home. Their stories of this task mark another early milestone in the recovery process because it now focuses them more squarely on the future work of rebuilding.
Who Pays for Debris Removal?
Another early hurdle is determining who will pay for the debris removal. In the three fires discussed in my earlier article, "Wildfire Recovery: The Critical Role of Debris Removal Coverage," the admitted insurance companies were the primary source of debris removal funding. Most admitted insurer homeowner policies and many excess and surplus lines policies provide 5 percent of the dwelling and personal property limits for debris removal expenses, which usually suffices to cover these costs.
However, the new California FAIR Plan personal lines policies do not have this additional coverage, so any debris removal costs will be deducted from the policy amount purchased. This necessity will further erode the insurance proceeds from the FAIR Plan, which the policyholders need to rebuild. A FAIR Plan claims FAQ is available to help insureds navigate the claims process.
A debris removal program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will assist these insureds by doing the cleanup. How or if the sponsoring local entity managing the FEMA cleanup could recover insurance proceeds for this group of homeowners is unknown.
A significant variable in this debris removal process is the number of totally uninsured or underinsured folks who will have no benefits to do this cleanup except for the FEMA program. Finally, businesses that experienced total losses have a fixed dollar amount in their commercial policies, which is likely insufficient to cover their debris removal process, so they will likely benefit from the FEMA cleanup program.
What To Expect
Because of the scale and the multiple political entities impacted by the fire, debris removal management is a necessary early component of how smoothly this task will proceed. In everyday life, buildings are demolished following set permitting and construction procedures. However, it is not customary to face removing and cleaning for over 10,000 properties. Therefore, it is critical to streamline the permitting and inspection processes and to attempt standardization of the removal process between political units.
A substantial public relations and education process is also associated with this process. Many people do not realize that the government or any third party cannot just walk onto your property and begin the cleanup unless there is an immediate threat. Based on the Colorado wildfire experiences, the amount of education and paperwork necessary to start the cleanup is substantial, so simpler processes will pay dividends in the recovery process. Such systems must accommodate private removal contractors, the FEMA-type removal project, and perhaps self-cleanup for those residents who wish to do their removal for economic reasons.
Finally, who decides which communities are cleaned first, and why does it matter? It matters because the first areas cleaned can begin the rebuild earlier, which is a worthy objective. However, with a limited supply of contractors, property owners ready to proceed can contract with a builder, reducing the number of builders available to reconstruct new homes. In the Colorado setting, the average rebuilding time was approximately 8–9 months. Considering the daunting number of homes destroyed in the LA fire, this limited supply and excess demand for construction services will slow the overall recovery unless creative processes and methods are developed to overcome them.
Early Takeaways
As I write this supplemental article, I recognize that these wildfires are not fully contained, so it isn't easy to speculate on the outcome of the initial cleanup and eventual recovery. However, if you factor in the prior wildfire debris removal experiences for which communities are usually less prepared and consider this event the largest US wildfire event, the challenges ahead for the political entities, communities, and residents are likely uncharted territory. Therefore, a critical early mission for this recovery is to plan a streamlined, rapid cleanup by collaborating with all the stakeholders and ensuring it is entirely and thoroughly communicated. Its outcome will be measured by speed and getting the communities and survivors focused on rebuilding their homes and businesses.
When I started my wildfire recovery endeavor 13 years ago, I never imagined that a catastrophic wildfire in the second-largest American city could be 30 times worse than that experienced in Colorado. Like the others, this fire will undoubtedly provide a real-world laboratory for facilitating postcatastrophe losses. It is fashionable in today's world to find fault for behaviors that may have led to the catastrophe, and it is critical to stay positive and collaborative in approaching this fire's recovery.
Each insurance professional should recognize that our colleagues in the LA area are facing this daunting learning experience today, but tomorrow, it could be us. That is why it is critical for us to relearn our trade as it relates to natural disasters and to continuously advocate for new and better ways to help policyholders navigate this new world of extreme catastrophes. It is time to commit to using our collective voices to find better solutions through better risk management techniques or risk financing tools. It is not the time to sit back and make excuses, find fault, or wait for someone else to fix it.
Finally, please take another look at the pictures of the LA wildfire aftermath and lock that image into your consciousness as the best reason to find better solutions to help these fellow Americans who will likely be displaced for at least the next 2 years or more. As insurance professionals and humans, it is essential to see and experience the human dimension of these events. Indeed, these horrific visuals are real-world reminders for me of the critical mission we have in preparing our customers for such catastrophes.
Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI. Expert Commentary articles and other IRMI Online content do not purport to provide legal, accounting, or other professional advice or opinion. If such advice is needed, consult with your attorney, accountant, or other qualified adviser.