From the article: It’s not easy to use like Google Maps, but you can view the fire maps here.
From the article:
With a few notable areas where the orange and red tide receded, like the hills above Berkeley and Oakland, territory deemed “high” or “very high” hazard exploded across the state, increasing by 168% since 2011.
All told, the size of these orange and red patches on the new maps is 3,626 square miles — an area nearly twice the size of Delaware.
That’s home to roughly 3.7 million people, according to a CalMatters analysis which combined the maps with finegrain population estimates from University of California researchers.
It’s not easy to use like Google Maps, but you can view the fire maps here.
The last few lines of the article were the most worrisome: So basically, those areas are where wildfires are most likely to start, but they can (and do) spread very easily after that. Fuck....
The last few lines of the article were the most worrisome:
If anything, the maps are likely to understate the extent of the danger.
As the Los Angeles Times reported in February, only a fifth of the properties inside the Eaton Fire scar in Altadena were deemed “very high” hazard. Coffey Park, the Santa Rosa neighborhood torched by the Tubbs Fire in 2017, was miles from the demarcated red zone in Cal Fire’s prior maps.
That’s because the hazard maps are meant to predict the likelihood of wildfire, said Berlant, not “conflagrations.”
“This is when one home catches on fire and it spreads to the next and to the next and to the next — and then miles into Altadena and the Pacific Palisades were destroyed,” he said.
Predicting that kind of disaster would require a model that takes into account more than natural topography, weather and vegetation. It would need to consider the heat generated and the embers produced when different types of homes, cars and RVs go up in flames. The width and orientation of roads that can serve as man-made fire breaks is another possible input. It would also need to take into consideration just how closely buildings are packed together, a leading predictor of whether a home burns in these fires.
So basically, those areas are where wildfires are most likely to start, but they can (and do) spread very easily after that. Fuck.
Insurance in the US is going to need some major overhauls in the coming decades. Between wildfires in the west and hurricanes in the east, natural disasters seem to be getting both more frequent and more powerful/destructive. Should have been overhauled years ago, but better late than never. However, I don't see things changing for the better any time soon, unfortunately. A lot of people will continue to lose their homes, some will lose their lives, and everyone's rates will grow exponentially, which will have widespread economic ramifications for years to come. Once again: fuck.
I was surprised to learn that insurance companies can opt out of many state regulations. This is called "non-admitted" or "surplus lines" insurance. It's hardly mainstream and there don't seem to...
I was surprised to learn that insurance companies can opt out of many state regulations. This is called "non-admitted" or "surplus lines" insurance.
It's hardly mainstream and there don't seem to be restrictions on how much the insurer can charge. Also, I don't know if banks would think kind of insurance is okay for a mortgage.
I just read that article you linked, and boy, what a quagmire. The whole insurance world is clear as mud. Admitted vs non-admitted. Up to each state to determine what the regulations for...
I just read that article you linked, and boy, what a quagmire. The whole insurance world is clear as mud. Admitted vs non-admitted. Up to each state to determine what the regulations for non-admitted insurance companies are, and the criteria for who qualifies for them or not. Even in the best-case scenario where there are no natural disasters going on at the moment, that sounds like a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and research just to make sure you're properly covered.
But my fear is in the worst-case scenario, where a huge hurricane wipes out entire towns in the east coast, or a massive forest fire destroys large chunks of the western US, or some devastating and unprecedented levels of rain washes away countless homes and buildings somewhere in between. It's no secret that insurance companies do everything possible to weasel their way out of paying claims, and unfortunately I have very little faith that either individual state governments or the Federal Government will step in to make them pay up, or cover the costs themselves.
Anecdotally, my homeowner's insurance has literally tripled ($1300->$3900) in the span of five years, and I don't see it stopping any time soon. And that's without a single claim or anything.
Natural disasters, and the planning and preparation for them, really needs to be one of those things that is handled at a collective level, but the current system we have all over the country seems to encourage much more of an 'every man for themselves' kind of situation.
From the article:
It’s not easy to use like Google Maps, but you can view the fire maps here.
The last few lines of the article were the most worrisome:
So basically, those areas are where wildfires are most likely to start, but they can (and do) spread very easily after that. Fuck.
Insurance in the US is going to need some major overhauls in the coming decades. Between wildfires in the west and hurricanes in the east, natural disasters seem to be getting both more frequent and more powerful/destructive. Should have been overhauled years ago, but better late than never. However, I don't see things changing for the better any time soon, unfortunately. A lot of people will continue to lose their homes, some will lose their lives, and everyone's rates will grow exponentially, which will have widespread economic ramifications for years to come. Once again: fuck.
I was surprised to learn that insurance companies can opt out of many state regulations. This is called "non-admitted" or "surplus lines" insurance.
It's hardly mainstream and there don't seem to be restrictions on how much the insurer can charge. Also, I don't know if banks would think kind of insurance is okay for a mortgage.
I just read that article you linked, and boy, what a quagmire. The whole insurance world is clear as mud. Admitted vs non-admitted. Up to each state to determine what the regulations for non-admitted insurance companies are, and the criteria for who qualifies for them or not. Even in the best-case scenario where there are no natural disasters going on at the moment, that sounds like a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and research just to make sure you're properly covered.
But my fear is in the worst-case scenario, where a huge hurricane wipes out entire towns in the east coast, or a massive forest fire destroys large chunks of the western US, or some devastating and unprecedented levels of rain washes away countless homes and buildings somewhere in between. It's no secret that insurance companies do everything possible to weasel their way out of paying claims, and unfortunately I have very little faith that either individual state governments or the Federal Government will step in to make them pay up, or cover the costs themselves.
Anecdotally, my homeowner's insurance has literally tripled ($1300->$3900) in the span of five years, and I don't see it stopping any time soon. And that's without a single claim or anything.
Natural disasters, and the planning and preparation for them, really needs to be one of those things that is handled at a collective level, but the current system we have all over the country seems to encourage much more of an 'every man for themselves' kind of situation.