Bloomberg Businessweek

 POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek August 20, 2018

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& Home Safety, says governments need to con-

sider how to make older houses less of a risk.

Oicials haven’t imposed those requirements,

not least because they’re expensive. The federal

government already gives out billions of dollars

in so-called hazard mitigation grants to protect

homes threatened by natural disasters such as

looding, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Wright says

those grants could be used to help subsidizeire-

related retroits, but states have yet to start asking

for them—perhaps because the problem so far has

seemed less pressing than other types of hazards.

Another problem, says Molly Mowery, founder

and CEO of Wildire Planning International, which

advises governments on ire policy, is that local

governments typically wait until after a wildire to

decide what, where, and how to rebuild, which is

the exact moment when emotions are heightened.

A better approach, she says, is to establish policies

beforehand, when it’s easier to think dispassion-

ately. The trouble is that communities tend not to

spend time planning for catastrophe, and few local

oicials believe their town is next. “They’re often

not thinking about the front end of disasters, let

alone the back end,” Mowery says.

The question that may be most politically fraught

is whether it’s appropriate to keep building in the

most ire-prone areas as climate change gets worse.

“At some point, you certainly have to consider

encouraging people to move,” says R.J. Lehmann,

director of insurance policy for the R Street Institute,

which advocates market-based solutions for climate

change. Yet California’s housing crisis means the

state needs more homes, not fewer. So any policy

aimed at discouraging homes in the forest should

include pushing cities to allow for greater density.

“I don’t think zoning is usually thought of as a wild-

ire issue, but it certainly can be,” he says. “Those

two things have to go hand in hand.”

In theory, a market solution would come from the

insurance industry. Mark Ghilarducci, director of the

California Governor’s Oice of Emergency Services,

says that if the state left it up to insurers to determine

rates in ire-prone areas, people wouldn’t be able to

aford coverage. But Lehmann says California goes

too far in the other direction, preventing insurers

from raising rates based on projected future losses

from worsening wildires. Nor can insurers take into

account the rising costs of reinsurance, another indi-

cator that risks are increasing.

Since last year’s ires, lawmakers have intro-

duced bills to make it harder for insurers to raise

rates or cancel coverage for homeowners in high-

risk areas. Rex Frazier, president of the Personal

Insurance Federation of California, a trade associ-

ation, says he expects some of those bills to pass.

“We get a lot of pressure from people who are wor-

ried about the impact of climate change and all

sorts of failures to adapt,” he says. “And yet when

we try to provide the signals that many clamor for

us to provide, then others don’t like how it looks.”

Ghilarducci says the state has done as much

as anywhere in the country to cope with climate

risks. “There actually has been a lot of money and

a lot of efort put forward in trying to manage the

threat,” he says. “We have looked at this across

the board.” Asked whether it’s appropriate to keep

developing ire-prone areas, Ken Pimlott, director

of the California Department of Forestry and Fire

Protection, chooses his words carefully. “If it’s done

the correct way, it can be done,” he says. Pimlott

deines that as listening to the advice of ire oicials,

including their warnings about tightly clustered

development, building in greenbelts, inadequate

roads into a community, and meager funds set aside

for ighting ires. He adds, however, that local gov-

ernments often disregard those warnings.

Ghilarducci, asked whether it’s wise to let local

oicials overrule the recommendations of state ire

staf, suggests a deeper sort of change could be com-

ing. “Local governments have built a lot of control

and responsibility,” he says. “Some of that may be

reevaluated.”—Christopher Flavelle

THE BOTTOM LINE California has experienced record wildfires in

the past two years, but local governments and popular pressure are

preventing reforms, despite worries about global warming.

20 18 FIRES AS OF AUG. 13; CALIFORNIA ACREAGE ONLY; FIRES ARRANGED BY START DATE;DATA: CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND FIRE PROTECTION

The 20 Largest California Wildfires

Record number of acres

9/1932

Matilija Fire

220k acres

Mendocino

Complex Fire

345k acres

Thomas Fire

282k acres

Cedar Fire

273k acres

7/2018