Thank you for this article! Fire ecology is something I find fascinating. Not where it impacts people of course. I wonder what our nation would look like if we had been willing to learn from people who were different from us over the past 250 years. Science is imperfect and made worse when the voices being listened to drown out those with the most experience. Our political choices exacerbate this. I think back to the article the Preamble posted in January called A Song of Water and Governance and where that overlaps with our choices related to fire, especially in the west.
I was wondering the same thing! I wonder if the strategies of Native Americans were dismissed simply because of the feeling of towards them at the time. If so, what a shame…
My brother's home was one of the few Altadena survivors and they are still not back in over a year later. The scale of the tragedy is unreal. And the mental health toll...
It would be nice to live in a country where policies to ensure health and safety, including safety from devastating fires, were a priority. Unfortunately, we're not living in that kind of country today. I wonder if we'll ever get there while we point fingers and stare at the finger. (I think I stole that idea from someplace, but I'm not sure where.)
Thanks for this article. As a survivor of the Marshall fire, it’s sad to read that the same things keep happening after every fire- insurance problems, underinsurance, rising building costs- we had all of these in our fire. And to level set, the average recovery time from a wildfire or urban conflagration of this magnitude is 5-7years so the fact that many people aren’t back and haven’t settled insurance is totally normal. Our fire recovery was considered a record in that many people were back at the 2-2.5 year mark. But, I still have neighbors who aren’t back 4 years later. LA was magnitudes bigger than our fire. The Camp fire- Paradise- is a great example of a community building back resiliently on a more normal schedule.
No matter where you live, you do so at your own risk and can't always count on whether government entities will have your back when a fire happens, so make sure you have really good insurance coverage or , otherwise, keep you fingers crossed.
Unfortunately good insurance isn't enough sometimes. As noted in the article people with what they thought was good insurance still ran into issues. There is a certain amount of risk we all take whether we live on the coast, in tornado alley or in fire prone areas. But as climates change (we can argue what the sources of that change are, no matter what, climates are changing) the number of people impacted by natural disasters only increases. And as home values increase, so does insurance. This article is dense but discusses that https://yalelawjournal.org/essay/the-uninsurable-future-the-climate-threat-to-property-insurance-and-how-to-stop-it There are real reasons why helping people in these situations is beneficial to the government, beyond being a good neighbor and caring for our fellow man. There are real economic implications that these communities face after natural disasters. If we let them go without help - what are the broader economic impacts we're letting fester?
All good points , Amber , but the point I am making is that as people consider where to live , they must also consider the best insurance company to give them peace of mind and the cheapest coverage is usually not the way to go. If people will do their homework and find the companies that have a really good track record of honoring claims and are willing to pay extra for that , then , that is the way to go, in my view.
Imperfect Paradise podcast has done a few episodes about the fire and recovery. The Jan 9, 2026 episode was the most recent one on the Altadena and Palisades fires.
Thank you for this article! Fire ecology is something I find fascinating. Not where it impacts people of course. I wonder what our nation would look like if we had been willing to learn from people who were different from us over the past 250 years. Science is imperfect and made worse when the voices being listened to drown out those with the most experience. Our political choices exacerbate this. I think back to the article the Preamble posted in January called A Song of Water and Governance and where that overlaps with our choices related to fire, especially in the west.
I was wondering the same thing! I wonder if the strategies of Native Americans were dismissed simply because of the feeling of towards them at the time. If so, what a shame…
Wow, this is fascinating and scary as hell. This could happen any where!
My brother's home was one of the few Altadena survivors and they are still not back in over a year later. The scale of the tragedy is unreal. And the mental health toll...
It would be nice to live in a country where policies to ensure health and safety, including safety from devastating fires, were a priority. Unfortunately, we're not living in that kind of country today. I wonder if we'll ever get there while we point fingers and stare at the finger. (I think I stole that idea from someplace, but I'm not sure where.)
Thanks for this article. As a survivor of the Marshall fire, it’s sad to read that the same things keep happening after every fire- insurance problems, underinsurance, rising building costs- we had all of these in our fire. And to level set, the average recovery time from a wildfire or urban conflagration of this magnitude is 5-7years so the fact that many people aren’t back and haven’t settled insurance is totally normal. Our fire recovery was considered a record in that many people were back at the 2-2.5 year mark. But, I still have neighbors who aren’t back 4 years later. LA was magnitudes bigger than our fire. The Camp fire- Paradise- is a great example of a community building back resiliently on a more normal schedule.
Bottom line:
No matter where you live, you do so at your own risk and can't always count on whether government entities will have your back when a fire happens, so make sure you have really good insurance coverage or , otherwise, keep you fingers crossed.
Unfortunately good insurance isn't enough sometimes. As noted in the article people with what they thought was good insurance still ran into issues. There is a certain amount of risk we all take whether we live on the coast, in tornado alley or in fire prone areas. But as climates change (we can argue what the sources of that change are, no matter what, climates are changing) the number of people impacted by natural disasters only increases. And as home values increase, so does insurance. This article is dense but discusses that https://yalelawjournal.org/essay/the-uninsurable-future-the-climate-threat-to-property-insurance-and-how-to-stop-it There are real reasons why helping people in these situations is beneficial to the government, beyond being a good neighbor and caring for our fellow man. There are real economic implications that these communities face after natural disasters. If we let them go without help - what are the broader economic impacts we're letting fester?
All good points , Amber , but the point I am making is that as people consider where to live , they must also consider the best insurance company to give them peace of mind and the cheapest coverage is usually not the way to go. If people will do their homework and find the companies that have a really good track record of honoring claims and are willing to pay extra for that , then , that is the way to go, in my view.
Imperfect Paradise podcast has done a few episodes about the fire and recovery. The Jan 9, 2026 episode was the most recent one on the Altadena and Palisades fires.