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Newsweek
5 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
California Issues Urgent Insurance Advice To Thousands of Wildfire Evacuees
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The California Department of Insurance has urged residents who have been ordered to evacuate because of wildfires to contact their insurance companies about reimbursement for evacuation and relocation costs. A significant number of wildfires have been raging in the state, with the Gifford fire alone having scorched more than 118,000 acres of land since igniting on August 1, while the Canyon fire, which started on August 7, has burnt over 5,300 acres of land, according to California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). The state's Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has advised all of those forced to relocate due to the fires to keep receipts and documentation to support claims for benefits. Newsweek has contacted the California Department of Insurance outside of regular working hours via email for comment. Why It Matters Large-scale evacuations from the recent Southern California wildfires have displaced tens of thousands of residents and increased pressure on an already strained insurance market, prompting regulators to emphasize that cost should not deter people from leaving dangerous areas and seeking assistance. Lara warned those in affected areas to listen to firefighters when told to evacuate, saying that cost should not be an "obstacle" preventing Americans from leaving the region to get to safety. The commissioner has long-been a proponent of providing insurance benefits to those affected by evacuation - in 2020, Lara sponsored Senate Bill 872, which required insurers to provide at least two weeks of benefits to evacuees among other measures. File photo: firefighters battle the Canyon Fire on Thursday, August 7, in Hasley Canyon, California. File photo: firefighters battle the Canyon Fire on Thursday, August 7, in Hasley Canyon, California. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP What To Know The Department of Insurance said displaced homeowners and renters should contact their insurance agents or companies to determine eligibility for Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage, which typically covered costs for food, housing, furniture rental, relocation, storage and additional transportation. The department advised evacuees to keep all receipts, document the date and time of calls with insurer representatives and to verify adjusters' licenses by checking online with the department's website. Evacuees should also check with their insurance provider or agent as soon as possible to confirm coverage, limits, and any documentation requirements, the department said. The department also has a list of tips for wildfire claimants that those affected can refer to for additional support. The Canyon Fire began at 1:25 p.m. on Thursday near Highway 126 and Castaic, and by the evening, the fire had grown to 4,856 acres with zero containment. Meanwhile, the Gifford Fire started on August 1 at 3.44 p.m. and as of Monday morning, multiple evacuation orders were in place, including for San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County with various roads closed. What People Are Saying Ricardo Lara, California's Insurance Commissioner, said: "When our firefighters say it's time to evacuate, you need to go. Cost should not be an obstacle. I want evacuees to know that additional living expense coverage can help alleviate the stress and financial burden of mandatory evacuations. Evacuated residents should keep their receipts and contact their insurance agent to understand their coverage and any additional resources available during this time." What Happens Next Evacuees were instructed to contact their insurers and the California Department of Insurance consumer phone number at 1-800-927-4357 for help with claims and coverage questions. Meanwhile, the firefighters continue to smother the spreading wildfires, with the Canyon fire now at 91 percent containment and the Gifford fire at 33 percent containment, according to CAL FIRE data on Monday morning.
Newsweek
08-08-2025
- Climate
- Newsweek
Map Shows Where Canyon Fire Is Burning in Southern California
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A fast-burning brush fire erupted in California's Ventura County on Thursday and quickly spread to more than 1,000 acres. There was zero containment as the fire later crossed into Los Angeles County, according to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Evacuation orders have been issued for nine zones, the agency said, adding there were no reports of casualties or damage to structures. Why It Matters The Canyon Fire is about 90 miles southeast of the massive Gifford Fire, which now covers nearly 100,000 acres. The cause is under investigation. Temperatures in the area are near 100 degrees and humidity as low as 15 percent. The southern part of California has seen very little rain, drying out vegetation and making it "ripe to burn," the National Weather Service (NWS) for Los Angeles warned. What To Know The Canyon Fire started at 1:25 p.m. local time in a remote mountainous area southeast of Piru Lake, north of Highway 126 and west of the town of Castaic. It is being tackled by the Ventura and Los Angeles county fire departments, Cal Fire said. "The fire is burning east with a rapid rate of spread in light to medium fuels. The onshore push is influencing fire behavior and the fire is threatening 60kv powerlines as well as the communities of Halsley Canyon and Hatthaway Ranch but is moving away from the community of Piru," the agency added. Warning of an "immediate threat to life," Cal Fire said evacuation orders had been issued for the following zones: PIRU-14 PIRU-01 LAKP-05 LAKP-06 LAKP-04 CAS-VALVERDE CAS-OAKCANYON CAS-HASLEY CAS-ROMERO A screenshot from California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. A screenshot from California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Evacuation warnings had been issued for eight zones: CAS-INDUSTRY CAS-GOLDENSTATE-B CAS-SLOAN CAS-GREENHILL CAS-CAMBRIDGE CAS-HILLCREST LAKP-01 LAKP-02 What People are Saying Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger urged people to heed evacuation orders: "The Eaton Fire showed us how quickly devastation can strike. It is never worth risking your life, the lives of your loved ones and pets, or the safety of those working to protect you. Your safety is my top priority, and swift action saves lives." What Happens Next Fire risk will be elevated through the weekend across much of inland California as a heat wave intensifies, the NWS warned.
NDTV
27-07-2025
- General
- NDTV
Small Plane Carrying 3 Crashes Off California Coast, Search Underway
California: Authorities are searching for three people who were aboard a private twin-engine plane that crashed off the central California coast. Emergency officials responded Saturday night after receiving a lost radar alert and 911 calls from residents, KSBW-TV reported. Witnesses reported hearing an aircraft engine revving and a splash in the water near the coast of Pacific Grove, the station reported. The small plane, a Beech 95-B55 Baron, took off from the San Carlos airport at 10:11 p.m. local time and was last seen at 10:37 p.m. near Monterrey, according to flight tracking data from Several agencies responded to the crash and search effort, including the US Coast Guard and California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. People on shore reported seeing debris wash up from the crashed aircraft. Coast Guard officials estimated the plane crashed about 200 to 300 yards (183 to 274 meters) offshore, the news station reported.
CBS News
24-04-2025
- General
- CBS News
How Cal Fire's Davis nursery aims to replace trees burned in wildfires
DAVIS — Wildfires scorched more than a million acres in California last year, and the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) says the state faces a growing threat of large blazes. Tiny seedlings will soon be used to replace trees burned during those devastating wildfires. Cal Fire has a reforestation center in Davis, where they grow row after row of trees. "It's incredibly important. If we don't reforest after a wildfire has gone through an area, we risk permanent forest loss," said Topher Byrd of the reforestation center. "We also risk losing the ecosystem systems that the forest provides." The process starts out in established forests, where workers collect pine cones. They're then brought back to Davis to be harvested. Eventually, the baby trees grow for a year and are then boxed up and replanted in burn scars across the state. "We've got approximately 1.8 million acres of forest land that needs reforestation from these devastating fires that we've experienced in the last 5 to 10 years," Byrd said. The Davis facility also houses California's seed vault, a storage area kept at a frigid zero degrees Fahrenheit with 40,000 pounds of seeds that can be used to regrow native species lost during catastrophic events. Cal Fire's nursery currently produces a quarter-million trees each year, and now they're getting ready to expand by growing four times bigger on the facility's vacant land that was once used as an airstrip. "Even increasing to a million is still only a fraction of the overall need," Byrd said. It's California's ongoing effort to recover from past fires and protect forests for future generations. "These are not going to be large mature trees for 50-plus years," Byrd said. The Davis location is Cal Fire's only nursery in the entire state. The expansion effort is currently in the design phase, and they're hoping to be up and running in a couple of years.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
California is turning to satellites and AI to combat the next wave of deadly wildfires
Devastating wind-fuelled wildfires caused havoc in southern California earlier this year. With the climate crisis increasing the chances of deadly blazes, firefighters are looking for ways to even the odds. One solution being explored is an AI-powered satellite constellation. California is turning to a novel solution to battle massive wildfires fuelled by global warming: AI-powered satellites. Deadly wildfires devastated the Los Angeles region earlier this year, forcing over 100,000 people to evacuate and razing thousands of homes. Driven by freak environmental conditions, including prolonged drought and strong winds, the LA fires quickly grew to the point they were nigh-on impossible to contain, pushing firefighters and fire-monitoring systems to their absolute limit. As the city rebuilds, California's fire-fighting division is looking to change that. The state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire, is partnering with a group of organizations building the Firesat network, a constellation of over 50 low-orbit satellites that aims to revolutionize the way we tackle mega-blazes. The fast-growing, wind-driven fires that devastated Los Angeles are only going to become more common as the climate crisis continues, with similar infernos breaking out in Colorado and Greece in recent years. In these fires, every second counts. Brian Collins, executive director of the Earth Fire Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind Firesat, told Business Insider that current fire monitoring systems are often too slow to give firefighters a clear picture of these rapidly unfolding conflagrations. "In extreme circumstances, like we see in California with wind-driven fires, you have very little time to make those critical decisions. The faster you can make them, the easier it is to contain that fire," Collins said. He said Firesat would significantly improve the ability to track wildfires compared to the current system, which is mostly made up of weather satellites, some of which are run by the US and European Union. Collins said these satellites are designed to track large, intense fires and scan the globe relatively infrequently. By contrast, the infrared sensors on Firesat's satellites will be able to track smaller low-intensity fires the size of a classroom and — once the 50-satellite network is up and running — will be able to observe the entire globe in 15-20-minute intervals. "In terms of fire detection, that is a dramatic, hundred-fold difference from current systems," said Collins. Space startup Muon Space is designing and building the satellites. On March 14, it successfully launched a pathfinder prototype satellite aboard a SpaceX rocket. The prototype launch lays the ground for the planned launch of the first three Firesat satellites into orbit in June 2026. Muon Space president Gregory Smirin told BI in an interview before the launch that this initial first phase will be able to scan every point in the globe twice a day, and be able to identify fires as small as five by five meters. "We have sparse data, to be polite about it, as to how many fires there are all over the world and what the incident rate is. The goal is to be able to get to a point where we can get a much richer dataset about what the actual behavior is," said Smirin. "If you're able to track hot spots and fires early, you can even identify where there are maybe fires that might be smoldering or low intensity ahead of high wind events," he said, adding that this would allow firefighters to send resources to these smaller blazes before they become too large to contain. Firesat also has backing from Google Research, and last week's launch was praised by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet. Collins said Google's AI and machine learning expertise would play a crucial role in sifting through the vast quantities of data the constellation is expected to generate. He added that with the funding the Earth Fire Alliance has received from partners such as Google's philanthropy arm and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the group was committed to providing the data from Firesat to public safety agencies for free. Collins said the Alliance was already partnering with fire responders such as Cal Fire to understand how they might use the data. A spokesperson for Cal Fire confirmed the agency's interest in Firesat to Business Insider. They added that the agency's primary interest in the satellite network was in providing more persistent coverage of fires that are actively growing or being contained. Smirin said he believed Cal Fire was interested in integrating Firesat into its emergency dispatch service, allowing the agency to validate which fires were growing quickly rather than wasting resources by dispatching crews to check on them. "We're definitely getting more extreme weather and more frequent fire, and we're getting fire spreading in areas that it didn't use to," said Smirin. "I think you're just seeing more extreme weather in all sorts of ways, and it's putting a lot more pressure on firefighters to figure out how to respond, he added. Read the original article on Business Insider
