Despite a quiet summer, experts fear current California wildfire conditions could make for a fire season worse than last year’s deadly destruction.

If monsoon moisture from Mexico creeps into the state over the next couple of months, lightning-triggered fires are quite possible. All it takes is one bolt of lightning to strike a dead tree, and the race is on to save the forests, towns and lives.

California is currently littered with 147 million dead trees, their fate sealed by either severe drought or unstoppable pine beetles. Literally adding fuel to the potential fire is a plethora of sunburnt grass and brush. California received a record amount of rain earlier this year, which boosted growth of new foliage that baked to a crisp over the summer and has now become perfect fire fuel.

Current California Wildfire Conditions Ripe for Megafires

The U.S. Forest Service calls devastating fires of more than 100,000 acres “megafires,” a term they agreed upon in 2011 after a spat of huge fires burned forests to the ground.

These megafires surprise even scientists who never thought they’d witness entire towns going up in flames in a matter of minutes. The earth becomes so scorched that seeds set to germinate are incinerated, and these deeply buried seeds are normally responsible for bringing a burnt forest back to life.

As the climate becomes hotter and drier, wildfires are a 365-day concern, but late summer and fall continue to be prime wildfire season.

To help combat wildfires before they start, California’s state legislature passed a bill setting aside $35 million a year for prescribed burns to remove a lot of dead wood in a controlled setting. Unfortunately, few of these burns have occurred because of limitations on Forest Service staff and because the California Air Resources Board won’t allow prescribed burns on high-pollution days.

Multiple thousands-of-acres wildfires push the air beyond healthy categories, but wildfires are not included in legal air quality quotas because they are considered natural disasters. Because they often aren’t allowed to follow through with a controlled burn on the best days, the Forest Service’s hands are tied.

Loss of Insurance Adds to Fears

Compounding fears of wildfires is the fact that insurance companies are dropping the homeowners insurance of many rural homeowners who are at greatest risk of fire damage. According to California’s office of the insurance commissioner, since 2015, more than 340,000 homeowners have received notice their insurance companies will no longer insure their homes.

Dropped homeowners often face premiums two to three times higher if they do find another insurance company that will insure their homes. The state also offers the California FAIR Plan, considered the “insurer of last resort,” which nearly 22,000 residents turned to for their first time in 2018.

California state law makes insurance companies hold off at least one year before the companies are allowed to drop the homeowners insurance of a home located in a wildfire-ravaged area.

According to an article in The Sacramento Bee, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is working on a measure to create insurance subsidies for low-income rural residents and to force insurers to continue to cover homeowners who take extra measures to protect their homes from fire damage.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.