The plan is part of yearlong effort to overhaul regulations and ease the insurance market crisis in the wildfire-stricken state.

Insurers use catastrophe models to calculate rates in every other state, but California has instead required the companies to use only historic loss experience based on the past 20 years. Insurers say that keeps them from pricing the growing risks from a warming climate into policies. In recent years, many insurers have stopped offering new coverage and dropped customers in wildfire risk areas, forcing them to buy bare-bones, last-resort policies at two or three times the cost.

“We can no longer look solely to the past as a guide to the future,” Lara said in a statement Thursday. “My strategy will help modernize our marketplace, restoring options for consumers while safeguarding the independent, transparent review of rate filings by Department of Insurance experts, which is a bedrock principle of California law.”

The second-term elected commissioner has been in a political vice as a growing number of homeowners in and around wildland areas from the Bay Area and beyond face soaring premiums and cancelled coverage due to escalating wildfire losses. The state has experienced 14 of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires over the past 10 years. It has only aggravated the state’s worsening problems with housing affordability, a top voter concern.

Consumer advocates behind the 1989 Proposition 103 voter initiative that set the state’s current insurance regulatory framework have criticized computer modeling as proprietary “black box” formulas that amount to fancy risk estimates insurers would use to drive unwarranted rate hikes.

Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield, Prop 103’s author, has noted that catastrophe modeling hasn’t helped hurricane-wracked Florida, which is facing a home insurance crisis of its own while homeowners there already pay some of the highest premiums in the country. He’s not necessarily opposed to them but said there must be transparency around their use. Consumer Watchdog says such models have helped push Florida rates two to three times higher than in California’s.

“Black box catastrophe models are notoriously contradictory and unreliable, which is why public review and transparency are key before insurance companies are allowed to use them to raise rates,” Rosenfield said Thursday. He said Lara’s plan “appears drafted to limit the information available to the public about the impact of models on rates in violation of Proposition 103.”

Insurers, however, applauded Lara’s proposal and argued that it will go a long way toward stabilizing the California home insurance market.

“As Californians grapple with record inflation and become increasingly vulnerable to climate-driven extreme weather, including catastrophic wildfires, this is a critically needed tool to help identify future risks more accurately and set rates that reflect our new reality,” said Mark Sektnan, vice president of state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. “More accurate ratemaking will help restore balance to the insurance market and ensure all Californians have access to the coverage they need.”

The Department of Insurance is inviting public comment on the proposed catastrophe modeling regulation ahead of an April 23 meeting. That will help shape the final regulation expected by the end of the year.

It is the second initiative in a plan Lara announced last fall, spurred by Gov. Gavin Newsom, for what he called the biggest overhaul of the state’s insurance regulations in three decades. He expects to complete the plan by December.

Last month Lara unveiled a proposal to speed approval of requested rate increases, but both consumer advocates and insurers voiced concerns about that plan. A public hearing is scheduled March 26.

Faster rate approval and predictive catastrophe modeling are two of three key demands insurers have insisted are needed to stabilize the insurance market and provide homeowners with more coverage options. A third, allowing insurers to bill policy holders for reinsurance — coverage insurers buy for themselves to limit their catastrophic loss exposure — is expected to be announced soon.

Lara has promised that in exchange for granting insurers’ ratemaking wishes, they must agree to provide 85% of their statewide home insurance market share in wildfire-risk areas. Rosenfield and independent industry analysts have been skeptical that such a commitment is feasible or enforceable.

Catastrophe modeling already is being used in the state to set policy rates for earthquakes and fires caused by them, Lara said. The new proposal would expand the use to include wildfire, terrorism and flood protection for homeowners and commercial property.

Commercial insurance policies to cover terrorism are offered separately, while standard homeowners policies cover fire, smoke and explosion, which could include acts of terrorism. Terrorism is too infrequent in the U.S. to base risk on historical losses, but the department said catastrophe modeling could provide a tool to better assess that risk.

Rosenfield said the proposed rule could lead to even further expansion of catastrophe modeling to boost rates for car insurance and coverage of other risks unrelated to wildfires and that it “fails to spell out whether or how the Department of Insurance would assess a model’s bias, accuracy, or the validity of the science.”

The commissioner said that the proposal allows for sufficient public oversight because the catastrophe models used by insurers would be reviewed by a panel of experts overseen by his department. The models, he said, would stabilize rates over time and also take into account homeowner and community “hardening” efforts to lower fire risk.

The Oakland-based power company earned an eye-popping $2.24 billion in profits last year, an increase of 24.6% from 2022, PG&E reported on Thursday. The report also predicted the utility titan’s investors can anticipate even better earnings in 2024.

The news comes as customers have seen their monthly PG&E bills spike and as the company has asked state regulators to approve even higher rates that it says are necessary to pay for improvements to equipment to prevent the types of catastrophic wildfires it has caused in the past.

The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group that goes by TURN, blasted the latest profit figures.

“TURN believes it is unacceptable for PG&E shareholders to pocket billions in profits at the expense of its customers who have seen bills skyrocket by 33% last year alone,” said Mark Toney, the group’s executive director.

Critics of the way the company operates have directed much of their ire at the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC), whose five governor-appointed commissioners are charged with regulating utilities — including rate increases.

“PG&E’s profits are being created on the backs of working families and small businesses in California that pay some of the nation’s highest utility bills,” said Loretta Lynch, a former PUC commissioner who for numerous years has been an outspoken critic of both PG&E and the state regulator.

“The PUC is supposed to be a watchdog, but instead, the PUC is a lapdog,” Lynch said. “When PG&E asks for a rate increase, the PUC’s response is how high should it be.”

The state Public Utilities Commission responded that it is doing its job to supervise PG&E’s operations, including the utility’s requests for additional revenue from its customers.

“The state PUC’s job is to hold PG&E accountable, ensuring ratepayer dollars are used in the most cost-effective way possible, maintaining full transparency of their financial records, ensuring they invest in making the system safer,” Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the regulatory agency, said in comments she emailed to this news organization.

In a December 2023 decision regarding PG&E’s general rate case, the PUC authorized $2 billion less in revenue from ratepayers than PG&E had requested, Prosper noted.

However, as a result of the PUC’s actions, in January 2024, PG&E monthly bills zoomed higher and reached an average of $294.50 a month for the typical residential customer who receives combined electricity and gas services from the utility.

That combined bill was 22.3% higher than the average monthly charges that went into effect at the start of January 2023 when combined bills were $240.73 for the typical residential customer.

An interim rate increase requested by PG&E could shove average monthly bills past the $300 mark for the first time by May of this year. The current average bill is already at an all-time high.

PG&E Chief Executive Officer Patricia Poppe, in a statement, addressed the year-end financials, saying, “Our story of progress continued in 2023, including further reducing wildfire ignitions and burying more powerlines than any prior year,”

PG&E reported $17.42 billion in revenue from its electricity operations in 2023, a 15.7% increase from revenue of $15.06 billion in 2022. Natural gas revenue totaled slightly more than $7 billion in 2023, up 5.8% from gas revenue of $6.62 billion last year.

Both electricity and gas revenue in 2023 hopped at a pace that greatly exceeded the Bay Area inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index, over the same 12 months. In 2023, Bay Area consumer prices rose 2.6%.

“Between its rank greed and rampant property destruction from wildfires, it’s difficult to identify another company that has inflicted more harm to the residents of the state than PG&E,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a consumer advocacy organization.

PG&E has been ordered to pay billions of dollars in penalties for its role in causing a deadly gas explosion in 2010 in San Bruno and a series of devastating wildfires in Northern California, including the deadly Camp Fire in 2018 that claimed more than 80 lives and decimated the town of Paradise.

Lawmakers, including congressional candidate and former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, are alarmed at the costs being passed along to customers.

“Nobody should be surprised by these numbers or that rate hikes will continue,” Liccardo said. “That’s why I’ve proposed a federally backed program to liberate ratepayers from rising bills by enabling investments in electricity storage and generation within apartment buildings and houses.”

PG&E’s jump in profits is being disclosed just weeks after a big increase in monthly utility bills for residential customers went into effect on Jan. 1 — and only weeks before yet another bill increase is slated to begin.

It’s unclear if any relief for consumers is on the horizon. Wall Street and investors in PG&E — whose largest shareholders include Vanguard Group, FMR, Blackrock, JPMorgan Chase and State Street, according to the Yahoo Finance website — can at this point anticipate a bright 2024 when it comes to the company’s profits.

By comparison, PG&E earned $1.05 a share during 2023.

In the October-through-December fourth quarter of 2023, PG&E earned $919 million, a robust jump of 79.1% compared with profits of $513 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Excluding certain one-time or unusual items, PG&E earned $1.01 billion in the 2023 fourth quarter, up 79.6% from the similarly calculated profits for the final three months of 2022.

The Fire Safe Council finally completed its building and invited residents to an open house on Wednesday where members of the community could come meet the staff and get some useful information on fire safety as well as creative solutions to dealing with fire fuels.

Taylor Nilsson, the Fire Safe Council’s executive director, said his team technically moved into the building four months before the open house.

“The key part is making sure the community has access to learn about our programs and projects and how we can help them be fire safe,” Nilsson said. “We want to make sure that they know how to talk to us and learn about what we have going on and understand how we can help them.”

In front of the new building, located at 6569 Clark Road in Paradise, a small circle of fencing was set up for a young goat to greet people as they entered. This was no coincidence, as one of the more creative ways to create defensive space that the council has encouraged is goat ownership and renting goats.

“This month, we have a goat ownership workshop in Cohasset, and so that’s where we’re hosting it for community members to come learn from experts who own goats, know about goats and know how goats can be effective for wildfire safety on their property,” Nilsson said. “And then, you know, the challenges that you might face with owning goats but also the opportunities and ways that you can be successful.”

Each room of the new building contained residents, council employees and volunteers discussing fires and fire safety, including a board room at the back of the office where maps of the county were laid out and a large monitor showed the burn scars of fires within the past 10 years. Council members clicked through the overhead map showing areas where fire fuels tend to grow over a 10-year time period.

Beyond words

Fire Safe Council board member Jim Broshears could be found conversing with guests and recalling how previous fires affected the ridge. A former Paradise fire chief, Broshears said the council has been a part of the community for more than 20 years.

“It’s beyond words what we’ve become to the community,” Broshears said. “We have always been able to put projects on the ground and work with our community members but since the (Camp Fire), we have really hit our stride in being able to be that friendly face for people who have problems that need solving at the ground level.”

For new Paradise resident Ken Rankin, the event provided a positive outlook. Rankin had purchased a house in Paradise where he planned to move after retiring, but the home was destroyed in the Camp Fire. After rebuilding a new home, Rankin was able to officially move in on Friday.

“I feel great,” Rankin said. “It’s nice to see the coordination between the different agencies and it’s nice to know there are projects in the works.”

Nilsson said he’s looking forward to the office being a resource for the community.

“The big benefit is that community members are coming together and working together on how they can be wildfire safe through helping each other with defensible space and clearance,” Nilsson said.

More information can be found about the Fire Safe Council and its programs and events can be found at buttefiresafe.net.

Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty to three counts of arson to federal property in Sacramento federal court before U.S. District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta.

Maynard, who is being held without bail in the Yuba County Jail, was arrested in August 2021 after a three-week investigation that included the use of a tracking device hidden on his vehicle by authorities who followed his movements throughout Northern California for hundreds of miles, court papers say.

“It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” court papers filed after his arrest say.

Maynard worked teaching part-time at various schools, including Santa Clara University, where he was an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department from September 2019 to December 2020, and at Sonoma State University, where he was a lecturer in the fall of 2020 specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior

He described himself in court Thursday as a “college professor” with a PhD in sociology and a history of being diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome — a disorder on the autism spectrum — and identified himself as “Dr. Gary Maynard” as he stood before the judge in orange jail garb and a waist chain.

Plea agreement documents filed in court Thursday say a search of Maynard’s vehicle after his arrest “recovered a number of devices, such as lighters, that could be used to set a fire.”

The search also turned up digital devices with “several hours” of audio and video recordings of Maynard “discussing arson, making threatening statements about arson., stating that he was going to commit arson, and, based on Maynard’s statements and the sound of matches being struck, appearing to attempt to commit arson,” court documents say.

Maynard first came to authorities’ attention on July 20, 2021, when the Cascade Fire was reported on the western slope of Mount Shasta.

Mountain bikers reported the fire and helped keep it from spreading beyond 100 to 200 square feet in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Siskiyou County.

A U.S. Forest Service investigator who responded to the scene found Maynard under a black Kia Soul that had its front wheels stuck in a ditch and its undercarriage centered over a boulder, court papers say.

Maynard told the Forest Service investigator he was a professor, and a witness in a nearby vehicle later told authorities that Maynard seemed angry, had displayed a large knife and was “mumbling a lot and having bipolar-like behavior,” court papers say.

The next day, a second fire erupted at 2:50 a.m. on Mount Shasta near the Everitt Memorial Highway, and investigators later found tire tracks similar to those made by the Kia hatchback, court papers say.

Investigators tracked Maynard’s movements through his electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, card used for public assistance and by placing a tracking device on his vehicle, court papers say.

Maynard was tracked to an area where the Ranch Fire and Conard Fire burned in the Lassen National Forest and was arrested while he was found inside an emergency closure area in place for the Dixie Fire, court papers say.

“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” court papers say of the blaze that was the second-largest in California history and burned nearly 1 million acres in five counties.

After being booked into the Lassen County Jail following his arrest, Maynard maintained he had nothing to do with the fires, court papers say.

“I’m going to kill you, f—— pig!” he screamed, according to court documents. “I told those f—— I didn’t start any of those fires!”

Maynard faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, and is scheduled to be sentenced May 9.

©2024 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The utility caused the 963,000-acre fire after a Douglas Fir tree fell on its power lines, sparking flames across five Northern California counties, according to Cal Fire. PG&E has settled civil lawsuits brought by multiple Sacramento Valley district attorneys for $55 million to avoid prosecution in both the Dixie Fire and the 2019 Kincade Fire.

Nearly 90% of CPUC’s penalty — $40 million — mandates PG&E digitize its maintenance records. Other recipients of the shareholder-funded fine include $2.5 million to be given to tribal entities affected by the fire and $2.5 million to be deposited in California’s general fund.

The safety and enforcement division of CPUC will monitor PG&E for ongoing compliance, according to CPUC.

“(The Dixie Fire) has real implications for the people of California and the residents of these counties, many of whom still do not have housing and have not fully recovered from the impacts of this fire,” said CPUC Commissioner Darcie Houck in Thursday’s meeting.

CPUC commissioners approved the fine by a 3-2 vote.

The five commissioners split into two blocs, disagreeing whether the $45 administrative consent order recommended by CPUC’s safety and enforcement division sufficiently holds PG&E responsible. The safety and enforcement division alleged PG&E violated seven CPUC public utility codes.

On July 13, 2021, a Douglas Fir tree fell onto electrical distribution lines owned by PG&E and sparked flames across Butte, Plumas, Shasta, Lassen and Tehama counties for about four months.

It cost $637 million in taxpayer dollars to suppress, making it the most expensive wildfire to be contained in California history, Houck said.

The utility company accepted that a tree crashing into a power line caused the conflagration and said in a statement it’s working hard to make the system safer everyday. But the company maintains it followed CPUC’s requirements when inspecting, maintaining and operating the system, according to a statement.

“PG&E believes we acted as a prudent operator,” the statement said. “There is no evidence that PG&E consciously and willfully disregarded a known risk with regard to the ignition of the Dixie Fire.”

CPUC commissioners Houck and Genevieve Shiroma voted against the penalty because it doesn’t outline specifically how widespread wildfires can be prevented.

“In regard to both the administrative consent order and PG&E’s responses, I am still not satisfied with the level of detail provided,” Shiroma said. “And, I don’t believe I have enough information to support the administrative consent order.”

PG&E said it will provide details in the future about the plans it seeks to implement, Shiroma said, but she wanted specific details before approving the $45 million fine.

The administrative consent order didn’t address Dixie Fire’s root cause — that there was a lack communication tools in the field to alert PG&E personnel and authorities of danger, Shiroma said. Specific employees must have the right knowledge to prevent a fire, she added.

On the day the Dixie Fire sparked, a PG&E employee couldn’t immediately communicate with authorities that a power line near Cresta Dam in remote Plumas County malfunctioned, investigators have said.

“It’s not about the records being digitized or not, but about the tools immediately available to PG&E personnel in the field and the company’s safety culture,” Shiroma said.

Houck concurred with Shiroma and added that she seeks to learn how CPUC’s safety and enforcement division will ensure PG&E complies with the administrative consent order.

She needed more information about whether the $45 million penalty was sufficient given the seriousness of the allegations, and who is responsible for changing PG&E’s safety culture. CPUC slapped PG&E with a $125 million fine in 2021 over the Kincade Fire, which was started by a faulty transmission line. In 2020, it agreed to a $1.9 billion penalty over devastating fires in Napa and Sonoma counties in 2017 and the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, which destroyed the town of Paradise.

“I do agree that there is a lot being done in addition to this consent order (but) there’s more that needs to be done,” Houck said of the Dixie Fire fine.

But the three other CPUC commissioners — Alice Bushing Reynolds, Karen Douglas and John Reynolds — noted the safety measures PG&E has already implemented.

Alice Bushing Reynolds, president of the state utilities commission, said PG&E implemented a new program that detects disturbances on its distribution lines, such as a tree falling on it.

“This program was not in place in time to prevent the Dixie Fire,” the CPUC president said.

Douglas said PG&E has addressed the cause of the Dixie Fire by installing this program.

“This negotiated settlement between PG&E and (the safety and enforcement division) … neither is PG&E accepting fault for the fire, nor is SED accepting it,” John Reynolds said. “The two parties have merely agreed to resolve their dispute with the settlement.”

©2024 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Recognizing the effort made in wake of the disaster, Gallagher took opportunity to speak in a press conference on legislative work toward addressing risk mitigation and removing barriers to developments and affordable housing — what he called a “cross section of what’s going on in California and statewide.”

Joining Gallagher were Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Chino), Senator Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), Assemblyman Greg Wallis (R-Rancho Mirage), Assemblywoman Marie Waldron (R-San Diego), Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R-Visalia) and Assemblyman Juan Alanis (R-Modesto).

“They, in their own districts, have seen disasters; they’ve seen issue with wildfire, with floods; and we need to better plan for our emergency situations,” Gallager said about the representatives. “…what we are doing up here and the things that we’re seeing here in Paradise and the ridge community is actually a really good cross section of what we can do statewide.”

Regarding risk mitigation, Gallagher said part of what legislators need to do is make smart policy decisions; he recommended changes to processing for California Environmental Quality Act, permitting and insurance  in order to expedite rebuilding.

“Up here we’re talking a lot about wildfire and what we need to do to prevent wildfire, but there are other emergencies we need to be better planned for; better prepared for; and that’s been a big conversation,” Gallagher said, including earthquakes and flooding.

The need for affordable housing was also brought forth in discussion by Gallagher.

“We have a housing crisis in this state. So many people — that house and that opportunity to live in an affordable place with your family — is very difficult. And some of the things we’ve seen up here have been really amazing. Partnering with (Community Development Block Grant) monies and (the California Department of Housing and Community Development), we’ve actually been able to build some affordable housing projects up here already. Habitat for Humanity has been one great resource for building homes up on the ridge.”

Gallagher said that Butte County benefited from disaster relief that paid for affordable housing, and that affordable housing can be brought statewide through tax credits.

“From a rural standpoint, from a lot a rural areas, we often don’t qualify for a lot of those tax credits that help build affordable housing. So that’s something we’ve been having a conversation about is — how do we make sure that all communities in California can get more of that tax credit programs that help build affordable housing,” Gallagher said.

“There’s been a lot of talk about how do we stream some of these processes and different streams of funding; like how do we make sure that’s more consolidated and easier for communities to navigate. And look; how do we remove kind of (not in my backyard) blockades that come up, seen in the CEQA process but in other ways as well.”

Gallagher said that California on a broader scale needs to be better prepared, and that there is “a lot more we can do” to mitigate risk, help communities become resilient and have affordable housing in all parts of the state.

Paradise progress

Another part of Thursday’s discussion regarded the need for Paradise’s sewer system to be addressed in order to move forward with rebuilds.

Paradise Mayor Ron Lassonde spoke about the progress Paradise has made, and about barriers to rebuilding.

“We’ve come a long way since Nov. 8 (2018). We’ve removed over 3.6 million tons of debris; hundreds of thousands of trees; we’ve rebuilt over 2,500 homes and we’re well on our way to undergrounding all our utilities and repaving our public roads.”

Lassonde said there are still barriers to overcome, including insurance and meeting fire resiliency building standards.

“Our situation’s a bit different. Our evacuation routes are being improved, but there’s gaps in our funding for these vital safety issues,” Lassonde said. “And we also know there’s no recovery in Paradise without the sewer. You’ve heard us hit that several times — it is absolutely critical for us to be able to rebuild our downtown …”

“So our goal for these projects is to bring our residents home. That’s our fundamental that we’re after — we want to seek those fundings so we can bring these people into affordable housing and bring them home.”

Assemblymen Alanis and Mathis said they are both dealing with cost barriers of building in rural, fire prone areas because of increased cost of insurance and the cost of materials needed to meet higher building standards for fire.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — The restaurant where Katie Austin was a server burned in the wildfire that devastated Hawaii’s historic town of Lahaina this summer.

Two months later, as travelers began to trickle back to nearby beach resorts, she went to work at a different eatery. But she soon quit, worn down by constant questions from diners: Was she affected by the fire? Did she know anyone who died?

“You’re at work for eight hours and every 15 minutes you have a new stranger ask you about the most traumatic day of your life,” Austin said. “It was soul-sucking.”

Hawaii’s governor and mayor invited tourists back to the west side of Maui months after the Aug. 8 fire killed at least 100 people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. They wanted the economic boost tourists would bring, particularly heading into the year-end holidays.

But some residents are struggling with the return of an industry requiring workers to be attentive and hospitable even though they are trying to care for themselves after losing their loved ones, friends, homes and community.

Maui is a large island. Many parts, like the ritzy resorts in Wailea, 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Lahaina — where the first season of the HBO hit “The White Lotus” was filmed — are eagerly welcoming travelers and their dollars.

Things are more complicated in west Maui. Lahaina is still a mess of charred rubble. Efforts to clean up toxic debris are painstakingly slow. It’s off-limits to everyone except residents.

Tensions are peaking over the lack of long-term, affordable housing for wildfire evacuees, many of whom work in tourism. Dozens have been camping out in protest around the clock on a popular tourist beach at Kaanapali, a few miles north of Lahaina. Last week, hundreds marched between two large hotels waving signs reading, “We need housing now!” and “Short-term rentals gotta go!”

Hotels at Kaanapali are still housing about 6,000 fire evacuees unable to find long-term shelter in Maui’s tight and expensive housing market. But some have started to bring back tourists, and owners of timeshare condos have returned. At a shopping mall, visitors stroll past shops and dine at at open-air oceanfront restaurants.

Austin took a job at a restaurant in Kaanapali after the fire, but quit after five weeks. It was a strain to serve mai tais to people staying in a hotel or vacation rental while her friends were leaving the island because they lacked housing, she said.

Servers and many others in the tourism industry often work for tips, which puts them in a difficult position when a customer prods them with questions they don’t want to answer. Even after Austin’s restaurant posted a sign asking customers to respect employees’ privacy, the queries continued.

“I started telling people, ‘Unless you’re a therapist, I don’t want to talk to you about it,’” she said.

Austin now plans to work for a nonprofit organization that advocates for housing.

Erin Kelley didn’t lose her home or workplace but has been laid off as a bartender at Sheraton Maui Resort since the fire. The hotel reopened to visitors in late December, but she doesn’t expect to get called back to work until business picks up.

She has mixed feelings. Workers should have a place to live before tourists are welcome in west Maui, she said, but residents are so dependent on the industry that many will remain jobless without those same visitors.

“I’m really sad for friends and empathetic towards their situation,” she said. “But we also need to make money,”

When she does return to work, Kelley said she won’t want to “talk about anything that happened for the past few months.”

More travel destinations will likely have to navigate these dilemmas as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

There is no manual for doing so, said Chekitan Dev, a tourism professor at Cornell University. Handling disasters — natural and manmade — will have to be part of their business planning.

Andreas Neef, a development professor and tourism researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, suggested one solution might be to promote organized “voluntourism.” Instead of sunbathing, tourists could visit part of west Maui that didn’t burn and enlist in an effort to help the community.

“Bringing tourists for relaxation back is just at this time a little bit unrealistic,” Neef said. “I couldn’t imagine relaxing in a place where you still feel the trauma that has affected the place overall.”

Many travelers have been canceling holiday trips to Maui out of respect, said Lisa Paulson, the executive director of the Maui Hotel and Lodging Association. Visitation is down about 20% from December of 2022, according to state data.

Cancellations are affecting hotels all over the island, not just in west Maui.

Paulson attributes some of this to confusing messages in national and social media about whether visitors should come. Many people don’t understand the island’s geography or that there are places people can visit outside west Maui, she said.

One way visitors can help is to remember they’re traveling to a place that recently experienced significant trauma, said Amory Mowrey, the executive director of Maui Recovery, a mental health and substance abuse residential treatment center.

“Am I being driven by compassion and empathy or am I just here to take, take, take?” he said.

That’s the approach honeymooners Jordan and Carter Prechel of Phoenix adopted. They kept their reservations in Kihei, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Lahaina, vowing to be respectful and to support local businesses.

“Don’t bombard them with questions,” Jordan said recently while eating an afternoon snack in Kaanapali with her husband. “Be conscious of what they’ve gone through.”

____

This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the first name of Cornell University Professor Chekitan Dev.

Prescribed burns, used to limit destructive wildfires, are growing in frequency at California State Parks. But as the smoke swirls around the firefighters and drifts into neighboring residential areas, it’s easy to see why many Californians are concerned about the health impacts of deliberately set fires.

“I have asthma. My eyes were burning, my lungs were burning, it wasn’t affecting me kindly,” said Michael Brokaw, who lives in Scotts Valley, 6 miles from the Wilder Ranch burn. “I couldn’t go outside.”

Few studies have directly compared the effects of breathing smoke from wildfires and prescribed burns. But preliminary findings indicate that deliberate burns are less dangerous, partly because they burn less intensely and over a shorter period of time — and those living nearby are typically notified in advance.

Prescribed burns also seem to contain lower concentrations of harmful particulates, the microscopic matter in our atmosphere, and are less likely to contain toxic chemicals released when a wildfire engulfs everything in its path.

Still, breathing any smoke is bad for you.

“You’ll quickly find that if you breathe smoke, it hurts,” said Josh Dougherty, a forestry aide with California State Parks, who helped light the fire at Wilder Ranch.

Californians are going to have to get used to smoke, as state and federal agencies fight fire with fire in an effort to reduce the accumulated vegetation that — together with drought and a warming climate — has fueled the intense wildfire seasons of recent years. In January of 2021, the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force outlined a goal of using prescribed fires on 400,000 acres across the state annually by 2025, compared to about 50,000 acres in 2023.

“You have to understand that [fire] is a part of California’s forest history,” said task force director Patrick Wright. Low-intensity fires used to burn almost constantly in California, which prevented larger all-consuming fires, he said. Indeed, the 400,000-acre target for prescribed burns is just a small fraction of the area that burned in California each year in the days before European colonization — one study put that figure at more than 4.5 million acres.

Prescribed burns can also help preserve vulnerable ecosystems such as the rare coastal prairies at Wilder Ranch. Without fire, bushes can quickly crowd out the more fragile grasslands and the species they support.

“I can’t make it rain, but I can use prescribed fire,” said Tim Hyland, senior environmental scientist for California State Parks. “It’s the most powerful landscape tool we have.”

Another advantage is that exposure to smoke can be reduced when people are alerted to prescribed burns in advance — although the process is far from perfect, as Brokaw’s experience demonstrated. He said he had no idea the prescribed burns were planned at Wilder Ranch this fall. It took him four phone of calls, including to 911, to find out why smoke was blanketing Scotts Valley. “Their communication with the community is awful,” Brokaw said.

Eventually, his calls brought him to Hyland, who manages prescribed fires on State Parks lands in Santa Cruz County. He was able to give Brokaw an explanation, and even warn him ahead of time before the next burn on the property.

Hyland said the online prescribed fire schedule for Santa Cruz County is updated regularly. News releases also go out to local daily news outlets in advance of a burn.

With prescribed burns on the rise, in April 2022 the American Lung Association and PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute based in Oakland, released a report assessing the health effects of wildfires and prescribed burns. “While prescribed fire may also result in harmful smoke exposure, the overall air quality and health impacts are estimated to be lower than that of wildfire smoke,” the report concluded.

All smoke carries tiny particles known as PM2.5, less than 2.5 microns in diameter — or about a fiftieth the thickness of a human hair. They can permeate deep into the lungs, causing microscopic tearing and inflammation. Even brief exposure to PM2.5 can trigger asthma attacks and increase hospital admissions for heart or lung disease. Children and older adults with preexisting heart or lung conditions are especially vulnerable.

In 2019, a team led by Mary Johnson, then at Stanford University, published a study of children in Fresno, who had blood drawn three months after being exposed to either smoke from a wildfire or a prescribed burn, each about 70 miles away. Levels of PM2.5 and other pollutants in Fresno were lower for the prescribed burn. The blood samples also revealed that the children exposed to wildfire smoke had fewer of an important type of cell involved in healthy immune responses compared to those exposed to smoke from a prescribed burn.

“A prescribed burn is done slowly and with more control, so you’re not going to reach the same levels of PM 2.5 as you would with one of these out-of-control wildfires,” said Johnson, who is now at Harvard University.

That’s because fire managers purposefully burn at low intensities and on days when the wind is least likely to carry smoke into heavily populated areas. In another study, scientists estimated the exposure of people to elevated levels of PM2.5 from fires that burned in the central and southern Sierra Nevada from 2010 to 2016, based on satellite observations of their smoke plumes. Per acre burned, they found that prescribed burns caused about 64% less harmful exposure than low-intensity wildfires, and 93% percent less than high-intensity wildfires.

Unless they get out of control, prescribed burns should consume only natural vegetation–and hopefully prevent exposure to something more dangerous.

“The challenge of wildfire is that it consumes anything in its path. It creates this toxic stew, and we can’t place what’s in that smoke. It could be chemicals, metal, plastic, anything,” said Will Barrett, national senior director of advocacy and clean air with the American Lung Association. “Smoke is bad to begin with, but with these additions, it’s far worse.”

As Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara embarks on a politically risky bid over the coming year to stabilize California’s imploding home insurance market by making it easier to raise premiums, homeowners in fire-ravaged communities seem resigned to a grim fate. In a state already grappling with unaffordable housing, the cost of insuring homes in much of California is about to get a lot higher.

“We’re kind of caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Finnie said. “We either pay outrageous amounts money for substandard insurance, or outrageous amounts of money for actual insurance from insurance companies. I don’t see an alternative.”

Companies such as State Farm, Allstate and Farmers Insurance stopped issuing or limited new policies throughout much of the Bay Area last year and notified homeowners that their policies would not be renewed. For many, the only options are an expensive state-mandated policy known as the FAIR Plan, offering minimal coverage, or no insurance at all — if they don’t have a mortgage that requires it.

Californians, who approved some of the country’s toughest insurance regulations in 1988, have enjoyed a bit of a break on home policies, according to the Insurance Information Institute. The state’s average homeowners insurance premium of $1,241 for 2020, the most recent data available, is below the U.S. average of $1,311, and those in Florida, at $2,165, Oklahoma, at $2,040 and Louisiana, at $2,038 — states all regularly wracked by hurricanes and tornadoes.

But the institute reports that the 10 costliest U.S. wildfires in insured losses all occurred in California, eight of them in just the last decade. Those include the 2018 Camp Fire near Chico, the 2017 Tubbs and Atlas fires in Wine Country, and a series of 2020 lightning-sparked fires, the LNU Complex in the North Bay and the CZU Complex in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The bill is now coming due. Consumer participation in the FAIR plan — established under state law in 1968 to require insurers to provide basic coverage in high-risk areas where it’s otherwise unavailable — has more than doubled since 2018 to about 3% of state policies.

The FAIR Plan, which doesn’t provide additional coverage for personal belongings, isn’t cheap. Finnie, 73, who’s partly retired, saw her annual premium triple to nearly $2,800 for its lesser coverage.

Jaimi Jansen, a Bonny Doon businesswoman whose home also survived the CZU blaze, had to get FAIR Plan coverage too after being dropped by her insurer, and now pays $14,000 — 10 times what she’d been paying — for the skimpier policy. She has to rent out a room in her house to help pay the bills.

“I’m trying to figure how to afford to live in Santa Cruz,” Jansen said. “It’s tough. The whole insurance thing is a total bummer.”

Insurers have laid out a host of demands they say are needed to stabilize a California market they say has grown riskier with a warming climate. They want faster approval for rate increases, the ability to calculate rates based on computer risk modeling, and to factor in insurer costs for secondary insurance on their own risk exposure. They also want consumers to help cover their FAIR Plan risks.

Insurers now must base rates only on historic losses, not projected risks, and approval for requested increases takes more than a year — twice as long as in Florida and four times as long as in Texas, according to the December Property Insurance Report by industry data analysis service Risk Information.

Consumer advocates — chiefly Los Angeles’ Consumer Watchdog, whose founder wrote the state’s 1988 insurance regulation initiative — have been vigorously opposed to the reforms, arguing they will bring higher premiums without transparency or guarantees insurers will offer new policies.

Lara in September announced plans to deliver by December 2024 the most sweeping overhaul to the state’s insurance regulations in more than three decades, with changes aimed at stemming the flight of insurers from the California market while ensuring they offer competitive policies in fire-risk areas. In exchange for industry requested regulatory changes, it would require insurers to provide 85% of policies in high-risk areas.

The proposed plan didn’t please either insurers or consumer advocates. Insurers say taking all of 2024 to develop regulatory changes means meaningful reform won’t be in place for years while California’s market teeters on collapse.

In December’s Property Insurance Report, the editors argued the industry’s requested relief is reasonable and Lara’s 85% rule likely unworkable and should be replaced with separate deals with individual insurers. They added that Lara has the authority he needs to enact changes now, and that “there is one undeniable fact for homeowners in California: many will face higher prices for property insurance.”

Among residents in the state’s fire-scorched regions like the Santa Cruz Mountains, the commissioner’s plan leaves them frustrated and resigned to yet another rising cost.

“It’ll be business as usual and the insurance companies win,” said Bob Burns, an automotive business consultant who moved from Boulder Creek, where his house survived the fire, to a home down Highway 9 in Felton where he could only get FAIR Plan coverage. “It’s blackmail at this point — you have to pay them.”

Scott Tucker, a Boulder Creek financial adviser and local historian whose house also survived but who also lost coverage and had to take a FAIR Plan policy, suspects the insurers are milking climate change as an excuse to gouge homeowners over fire risk he attributes more to poor forest management. Like many here, he’s taken numerous steps to make his property fire resistant, but sees no relief from insurers.

But Finnie, who has spent time studying and writing about the situation for local publications, feels like home insurance is going to cost more one way or another.

“I’ve seen massive changes in the risk profile in the state,” Finnie said. “There’s going to have to be some change and it’s going to cost us more. But it’s already costing us more.”

On Nov. 8, 2018, a massive wind-driven wildfire destroyed the town of Paradise, California. I experienced it firsthand, watching the plume from relative safety and later comforting friends and co-workers who lost homes, and nearly their lives. Eighty-five people died, some who I knew.

It was an unparalleled tragedy – until August 2023, when the town of Lahaina in Maui burned to the ground and at least 115 people died. The weather events, fire conditions, and human folly that led up to the Maui fire were nearly identical to what happened in Paradise. It reminded me of what British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said in a 1948 speech, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Some journalists and vocal green activists were quick to immediately blame “climate change” in both fires before the fire investigations were even started, much less completed. A detailed analysis by my colleague, meteorologist Cliff Mass, PhD., of the University of Washington shows that the Maui fire was a perfect storm of a high wind weather event, predicted days ahead, combined with a high fuel load due to dry invasive grasses; a similar scenario was the setup for the 2018 Paradise Camp Fire.

In both fires, power lines and high winds were the ignition source and the driver. In both fires, dry high fuel loads contributed to the intensity of the fires. In both fires, there were ample warnings in weather forecasts.

The other common denominator in both fires was the institutional failure of electric utility companies. Pacific Gas and Electric in California and Hawaii Electric (HE) both were pursuing green energy plans to satisfy green energy advocates and investors instead of paying attention to basic maintenance of their electrical power lines. The Paradise Camp Fire was blamed on PG&E ignoring maintenance on century-old power lines, which broke and sparked in a high-wind event. With video and data showing Maui power lines sparking during high winds, Hawaiian Electric is now the focus for lack of maintenance.

The Wall Street Journal, in their article “Hawaiian Electric Knew of Wildfire Threat, but Waited Years to Act,” noted, “Four years ago, the utility said it needed to do more to prevent its power lines from emitting sparks. It made little progress, focusing on a shift to clean energy.”

In 2019, HE stated the risk of fires and in a press release, outlining strategies to mitigate the wildfire risks from its aging power lines. The company noted that it was studying how utilities in California were dealing with similar wildfire threats. None of that was implemented. Meanwhile, the company focused on green energy goals, instead.

In June 2022, HE filed an application with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission stating it wanted to spend around $190 million over five years upgrading its transmission infrastructure to be more resilient, but at the time of the Lahaina fire, that plan still languished, mostly unimplemented.

In an August 19 New York Times article, the risk and the delay were laid bare. “Hawaiian Electric has known for years that extreme weather was becoming a bigger danger, but the company did little to strengthen its equipment and failed to adopt emergency plans used elsewhere, like being prepared to cut off power to prevent fires. The utility knew it needed to upgrade its equipment but did not make changes that could have reduced risks of fires, energy experts said.”

The pattern of deferring maintenance and safety upgrades at the expense of green energy goals is the same reason contributing to the PG&E Paradise fire, and now the Maui fire. Literally, it is “déjà vu all over again.”

Perhaps it’s time to put aside populist green energy demands and create a company constitution to ensure that system maintenance and the safety of ratepayers is the top priority. Hopefully, with two tragic examples now in full view, other power companies will learn from this history, rather than repeat it.

Anthony Watts is former meteorologist at KHSL TV/ Action News Now. He does daily forecasts for KPAY and is also a senior fellow for climate and environment at the Heartland Institute in Chicago.