We all pay for future disasters via taxes, insurance rates. How to minimize?

Written by Amy Ta, produced by Nihar Patel

A drone captures structures damaged by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California. Photo by Ringo Chiu / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.

If you lost a home in the Palisades and Eaton Fires, rebuilding will take years and a ton of money. Ultimately, the decision to do it at all is complicated by the reality that fires are likely to come again, especially amid climate change. President Trump announced plans to expand oil production and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, which almost every nation ratified to curb global warming. 

“Even if we were to stop emitting fossil fuels tomorrow, we know there'd be continued climate change. … We will have continued increases in the intensity of and the extent of wildfire in California,” says Alex Hall, professor in UCLA’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. 

He says California has always been the land of extremes, with tons of precipitation one year, followed by drought the next. “In this case, we had this big build-up of vegetation during the wet years, and then it dried out during the hot, dry summer. And that sequence set us up for these wildfires. So that swing between wet and dry, which is getting a little bit swinger … because of climate change, that is making these fires probably a little bit larger and more intense than they would be otherwise.” 

Given this reality, we must double down on building more homes in the existing urban core, rather than the wildland-urban interface, Hall advises. 

He continues, “We have to think a lot about rebuilding in a way that protects the new structures. So we know how to do home hardening. … One of the best strategies is to not have a wooden roof. … Have construction materials that aren't flammable, have defensible space around the homes. … If you look at all the homes that burned, probably many of them hadn't fully employed all these strategies that we know work to defend homes during wildfire.” 

It’s also key to minimize how much everyone must pay for a future disaster. Hall says people pay via taxes and insurance rates. “The risks are socialized, and that means that we all have a stake in how these areas are rebuilt, not just the people who are moving there. We are all helping to protect them. And so we should make sure that when they do rebuild, it's done in a way that minimizes the risk of damage to life and property going forward.”

Credits

Guest:

  • Alex Hall - professor in UCLA’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences