Latest Wildfire Headlines
All the headlines from our Wildfire Topic Page, ordered by recency.
California Remembers 3rd Anniversary of Wildfire That Killed 85, Destroyed Thousands of Homes
Nov 10 2021 // Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday marked the third anniversary of California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire by announcing that nearly 100,000 damaged trees have been removed and debris cleaned up from some...
PG&E Spending $125M for Igniting Massive California Wildfire
Nov 5 2021 // Pacific Gas & Electric has reached a $125 million settlement agreement with California regulators over the destructive Kincade fire, which was ignited in 2019 by the utility’s equipment in a remote area of Sonoma...
How Insurers Can Better Prepare for Wildfire
Oct 28 2021 // This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic. Nine of the 20 largest wildfires in California have occurred since 2020, including four so far in 2021. Five of the 19 largest wildfires in Oregon and three of...
Southern California Wildfire Almost Fully Contained, Residents Go Home
Oct 19 2021 // Residents who fled the Alisal Fire west of Santa Barbara have been allowed to return home. All evacuation orders and warnings were canceled Sunday afternoon. The fire was 87% contained Monday morning and its size was...
Guy Carpenter Launches European Wildfire Risk Score as Exposure Management Tool
Oct 18 2021 // Guy Carpenter & Co., the reinsurance business of Marsh McLennan has announced the launch of a Wildfire Risk Score designed to help clients manage their exposure to the evolving risk of wildfire across Europe. The...
Wildfire Destroys School in Small Eastern Washington Town
Oct 15 2021 // A fire has destroyed a school in an eastern Washington town. Lincoln County Sheriff Wade Magers said the fire at Almira Elementary and Middle School started around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Classes and after school activities had...
California Highway Reopens, Wildfire Still Threatens Homes
Oct 15 2021 // A key Southern California highway closed for days because of a wildfire was reopened Thursday evening but authorities warned that flames still posed a threat to remote properties in a coastal mountain range. The Alisal...
Surging California Winds Spark New Wildfires, Power Outages
Oct 13 2021 // Blustery winds still surged through California on Tuesday after downing trees, fanning wildfires and shutting off power to about 21,000 customers in northern and central regions. Red flag warnings of dangerous fire...
California Encourages Prescribed Burns to Counter Wildfires
Oct 8 2021 // California is encouraging more use of fire to fight fire, such as when deliberately set burns were recently used to protect giant sequoias from a raging wildfire. But sometimes what are known as prescribed fires themselves...
U.S. Approves Fire Retardant That Could Be ‘Game-Changer’ in Fighting Wildfires
Oct 7 2021 // U.S. officials on this week approved a long-lasting fire retardant that could significantly aid in fighting increasingly destructive wildfires by stopping them before they ever start. The U.S. Forest Service approved...
Goats Being Brought in to Help Slow Colorado Wildfires
Oct 4 2021 // A group of horse trailers pulls up to a trailhead outside of Carbondale, Colo. The doors open and more than 800 goats jump out onto the gravel parking lot. The goats head straight for the closest grassy hill and...
Report Shows Wyoming, Idaho Have ‘Disproportionate Risk’ from Wildfire
Sep 29 2021 // Lately, when people say “wildfire,” California is probably the first state that comes to mind. But a new report out should concern people living in a few other Western states that aren’t often mentioned...
PG&E Charged in California Wildfire That Killed 4
Sep 29 2021 // Pacific Gas & Electric was charged Friday with involuntary manslaughter and other crimes after its equipment sparked a Northern California wildfire that killed four people and destroyed hundreds of homes last year,...
Suspected Arson Wildfire Forces Evacuations in Northern California
Sep 24 2021 // Thousands of people were under evacuation orders Friday and many others were on notice to be ready to flee as a destructive wildfire raged in a drought-stricken forest in California’s far north. A woman suspected of...
Insured Price Tag for Canada’s Summer Storms and Wildfires Nears C$200M
Sep 24 2021 // Two storms that raged across Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada in July and August caused C$120 million (US$94.5 million) in insured damage, while the August wildfire, in White Rock Lake, British Columbia, is now estimated...
Karen Clark & Co. Releases Version 1.0 of U.S. Wildfire Model
Sep 22 2021 // Karen Clark & Co. (KCC), the Boston-based catastrophe modeling company, announced it has released Version 1.0 of its high-resolution U.S. Wildfire Model. This advanced and fully probabilistic model provides exceedance...
Aluminum Wrap Being Used to Protect Homes from California Wildfires
Sep 20 2021 // Martin Diky said he panicked as a huge wildfire started racing down a slope toward his wooden house near Lake Tahoe. The contractor had enough time to do some quick research and decided to wrap his mountain home with an...
PG&E Judge Wants to Know Why Power Wasn’t Cut on Line Linked to Wildfire
Sep 14 2021 // A federal judge wants PG&E Corp. to explain why it didn’t turn off power sooner to a utility line suspected of causing the second-largest wildfire in California history. At a hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge...
67% of Northern Minnesota Wildfire Contained
Sep 13 2021 // Authorities said on Sept. 12 that a vast majority of the Greenwood Lake wildfire in northern Minnesota is contained, one month after lighting ignited the blaze in the Superior National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service...
U.S. Hurricane Ida, Haiti Quake, Multiple Major Wildfires Among August’s Disasters: Aon
Sep 13 2021 // Hurricane Ida will likely become one of the costliest U.S. mainland hurricanes on record both on a nominal and inflation-adjusted basis, according to Aon’s monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report, which evaluated the...
