By AFP
January 24, 2025
The aerial firefight has been crucial in the battle to tame huge wildfires that roared through Los Angeles - Copyright AFP Peter PARKS
Paula RAMON
Helicopter pilot Tim Thomas has fought dozens of wildfires all over the world, but nothing prepared him for the scale and the challenge of the devastating blazes that ripped through Los Angeles.
“I’ve never seen anything the scale that we saw the first night,” he told AFP.
Fires erupted almost simultaneously in two separate neighborhoods during a furious windstorm on January 7.
Whole streets were engulfed as hurricane-force gusts flung fireballs from house to house.
Forecasters had been warning of extreme fire risk for days because of punishing dryness and winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, saying any small fire would quickly spread.
Extra resources were positioned all over the at-risk region, which extended for miles around the sprawling metropolis.
But the fires, when they came, were overwhelming, defeating the hundreds of firefighters on the ground.
Only an air assault would stop them.
– Transfixed –
A terrifying 24 hours after the first smoke blackened the air, winds dropped just enough for helicopters to take to the skies.
“It was some of the most turbulent wind I’ve seen,” said helicopter coordinator John Williamson.
Under the careful eye of experienced operators like Williamson, each pilot took turns in an elaborate airborne ballet.
The life-saving airshow they put on for nearly two weeks became a defining feature of the fires, watched with awe and gratitude by a terrified region.
Television viewers were transfixed by the incredible skills of helicopter pilots loading up hundreds of gallons (liters) of water into the bellies of their aircraft while hovering over a reservoir, then dumping it with pinpoint accuracy on a wall of flames.
The sight of huge jet planes swooping over a fire line and unleashing a trail of bright red retardant thrilled and relieved those whose homes were threatened.
But while they might have made it look easy, the pilots say the reality was far from it, with strong winds and unfamiliar terrain a constant challenge.
“There were definitely some uneasy moments going over the mountains where the crew was looking for me to see if I’m comfortable,” said Thomas.
“There’s definitely some times where the aircraft’s 23,000 pound (11.5 tons), and you’re getting rocked around, thrown around in the air.”
– ‘Takes your breath away’ –
Paul Karpus, who has overseen operations at an airbase in Camarillo, 45 miles (70 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, said the opening days of the firefight were like nothing he has experienced in 23 years.
“Every season, you say, I’ve seen it all… And then you’re surprised,” he told AFP.
“Seeing the amount of devastation for the first time, when the sun was coming up, and the amount of structures lost, it takes your breath away.”
Aerial teams operated 24 hours, pulling long shifts that left them exhausted and fraught.
“On a scale of one to 10, this one was a 10, stress-wise,” said Karpus.
– ‘Nerve-racking’ –
Williamson, whose job is to sit next to the pilot, guiding him to his designated zone and monitoring dozens of radio messages, said the complexity of the operation was a challenge.
“The first three nights, really was pretty nerve-racking,” he said.
Zach Boyce, who ran daytime operations said the sheer volume of aircraft in a tight space made things tricky.
“We’re coordinating a lot of helicopters in a very tight area, and then we introduce fixed wing operations and air tankers and air attack… and everything becomes super compressed,” he said.
More than two weeks after the fires erupted, killing more than two dozen people and reducing 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) to ash, the biggest blazes are under control.
But the value of the aerial firefighters continues to be seen, with a fast-moving fire that erupted on Wednesday corralled by the time night fell after an airborne assault.
For the people of Los Angeles, the men and women who have fought this battle are second to none.
“We should never stop thanking them,” Los Angeles-based talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said.
“Real superheroes.”
No home, no insurance: The double hit from Los Angeles fires
By AFP
January 21, 2025
Sebastian Harrison was not insured when the huge Pacific Palisades fire erupted after premiums became unaffordable - Copyright AFP VALERIE MACON
Romain FONSEGRIVES
As he looks at the ruins of his home razed when deadly fires tore through the Los Angeles area, Sebastian Harrison knows it will never be the same again, because he was not insured.
“I knew it was risky, but I had no choice,” he told AFP.
Harrison is one of tens of thousands of Californians forced in recent years to live without a safety net, either because their insurance company dropped them, or because the premiums just got too high.
Some of them are now counting the crippling cost, after enormous blazes ripped through America’s second largest city, killing more than two dozen people and levelling 12,000 structures, Harrison’s home among them.
His own slice of what he called “paradise” stood on a mountainside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where Malibu runs into the badly hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
The three-acre plot, which contained his home and a few other buildings, was always costly to insure, and in 2010 was already $8,000 a year.
When the bill hit $40,000 in the aftermath of the pandemic, he decided he simply couldn’t afford it.
“It’s not like I bought myself a fancy car instead of getting insurance,” the 59-year-old said.
“It’s just that food for myself and my family was more important.”
For Harrison, a former actor, the emotional strain of losing the home he had lived in for 14 years is magnified by the knowledge that without a handout from the state or the national government, he has lost everything — he even still has mortgage payments to make.
“I’m very worried, because this property is everything I had,” he said.
– Climate costs –
Insuring property in California has become increasingly difficult.
Well-intentioned legislation that prevents insurance companies from hiking prices unfairly has collided with growing risks from a changing climate in a part of the world that now regularly sees devastating wildfires near populated areas.
Faced with burgeoning claims — more damage, and higher repair costs because of the soaring price of labor and materials — insurance companies turned tail and left the state en masse, dropping existing clients and refusing to write new policies.
Even enormous names in the market, like State Farm and Allstate, have pulled back.
Officials in state capital Sacramento have been worried for a while.
Last year Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara introduced reforms aimed at encouraging companies to return, including allowing them more leeway to increase their premiums to better match their costs.
But huge and inevitably very expensive fires erupting in what is supposed to be California’s rainy season — it hasn’t rained for eight months around Los Angeles — have reinforced the idea that the state is becoming uninsurable.
“I don’t know now, because… my greatest fear was that we were going to have a catastrophe of this nature,” Lara told the San Francisco Chronicle at the weekend.
Even the state-mandated insurer of last resort, a scheme designed to provide bare-bones coverage for those locked out of the private sector, could be struggling.
The California FAIR Plan was created in 1968 and is underpinned by every insurance company that operates in the state, as a requirement of their license to operate.
But the number of people now resorting to the scheme means its $200 million reserves are dwarfed by its liabilities. (A reinsurance sector helps to keep it liquid.)
– ‘They’re going to drop me’ –
With the enormous losses expected from the Palisades and Eaton fires set to test the insurance sector even further, California has issued an edict preventing companies from dropping customers or refusing to renew them in certain affected areas, for one year.
That’s scant consolation for Gabrielle Gottlieb, whose house in Pacific Palisades survived the flames.
“My insurer dropped a lot of friends of mine… and I’m concerned that they’re going to drop me as well eventually,” he told AFP.
“They’re basically already putting it out there that ‘lots of luck after a year!'”
Even in a best case scenario, home insurance looks set to be a lot more expensive in California, as state reforms filter through allowing increased prices in places more susceptible to wildfire.
“Real estate and taxes are already very high in California,” said Robert Spoeri, a Pacific Palisades homeowner who was dropped by his insurer last year.
“If the insurance gets even higher, who is going to want to live in this state?”
By AFP
January 21, 2025
Sebastian Harrison was not insured when the huge Pacific Palisades fire erupted after premiums became unaffordable - Copyright AFP VALERIE MACON
Romain FONSEGRIVES
As he looks at the ruins of his home razed when deadly fires tore through the Los Angeles area, Sebastian Harrison knows it will never be the same again, because he was not insured.
“I knew it was risky, but I had no choice,” he told AFP.
Harrison is one of tens of thousands of Californians forced in recent years to live without a safety net, either because their insurance company dropped them, or because the premiums just got too high.
Some of them are now counting the crippling cost, after enormous blazes ripped through America’s second largest city, killing more than two dozen people and levelling 12,000 structures, Harrison’s home among them.
His own slice of what he called “paradise” stood on a mountainside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where Malibu runs into the badly hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
The three-acre plot, which contained his home and a few other buildings, was always costly to insure, and in 2010 was already $8,000 a year.
When the bill hit $40,000 in the aftermath of the pandemic, he decided he simply couldn’t afford it.
“It’s not like I bought myself a fancy car instead of getting insurance,” the 59-year-old said.
“It’s just that food for myself and my family was more important.”
For Harrison, a former actor, the emotional strain of losing the home he had lived in for 14 years is magnified by the knowledge that without a handout from the state or the national government, he has lost everything — he even still has mortgage payments to make.
“I’m very worried, because this property is everything I had,” he said.
– Climate costs –
Insuring property in California has become increasingly difficult.
Well-intentioned legislation that prevents insurance companies from hiking prices unfairly has collided with growing risks from a changing climate in a part of the world that now regularly sees devastating wildfires near populated areas.
Faced with burgeoning claims — more damage, and higher repair costs because of the soaring price of labor and materials — insurance companies turned tail and left the state en masse, dropping existing clients and refusing to write new policies.
Even enormous names in the market, like State Farm and Allstate, have pulled back.
Officials in state capital Sacramento have been worried for a while.
Last year Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara introduced reforms aimed at encouraging companies to return, including allowing them more leeway to increase their premiums to better match their costs.
But huge and inevitably very expensive fires erupting in what is supposed to be California’s rainy season — it hasn’t rained for eight months around Los Angeles — have reinforced the idea that the state is becoming uninsurable.
“I don’t know now, because… my greatest fear was that we were going to have a catastrophe of this nature,” Lara told the San Francisco Chronicle at the weekend.
Even the state-mandated insurer of last resort, a scheme designed to provide bare-bones coverage for those locked out of the private sector, could be struggling.
The California FAIR Plan was created in 1968 and is underpinned by every insurance company that operates in the state, as a requirement of their license to operate.
But the number of people now resorting to the scheme means its $200 million reserves are dwarfed by its liabilities. (A reinsurance sector helps to keep it liquid.)
– ‘They’re going to drop me’ –
With the enormous losses expected from the Palisades and Eaton fires set to test the insurance sector even further, California has issued an edict preventing companies from dropping customers or refusing to renew them in certain affected areas, for one year.
That’s scant consolation for Gabrielle Gottlieb, whose house in Pacific Palisades survived the flames.
“My insurer dropped a lot of friends of mine… and I’m concerned that they’re going to drop me as well eventually,” he told AFP.
“They’re basically already putting it out there that ‘lots of luck after a year!'”
Even in a best case scenario, home insurance looks set to be a lot more expensive in California, as state reforms filter through allowing increased prices in places more susceptible to wildfire.
“Real estate and taxes are already very high in California,” said Robert Spoeri, a Pacific Palisades homeowner who was dropped by his insurer last year.
“If the insurance gets even higher, who is going to want to live in this state?”
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