Latest Wildfire Headlines
All the headlines from our Wildfire Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Not All Homes in Wildfire Zones Are Uninsurable. Here’s How Insurers Can Tell.
May 22 2020 // Fire-risk scores now used by insurance underwriters can sometimes can make it challenging for homeowners to find coverage. Zesty.ai, a California insurtech start-up, is among a handful of firms working to fine-tune...
PG&E’s Bankruptcy Plan Wins Support from California Wildfire Victims
May 20 2020 // Pacific Gas & Electric’s plan for getting out of bankruptcy has won overwhelming support from the victims of deadly Northern California wildfires ignited by the utility’s fraying electrical grid, despite...
Pandemic Could Complicate Colorado’s Potentially Bad Fire Season
May 19 2020 // As if Southwest Colorado’s extreme drought wasn’t enough to raise concerns about a potentially destructive wildfire season, the added complications of the coronavirus have only fueled that anxiety. The COVID-19...
Florida Man Charged with Starting 343-Acre Wildfire in Panhandle
May 15 2020 // A Florida Panhandle man who set up an illegal burn barrel on his property caused a wildfire that torched approximately 343 acres (139 hectares) of wild lands and damaged or destroyed about 59 homes, state officials...
Firefighters Battle Raging Florida Wildfire as Many Florida Residents Return Home
May 11 2020 // For two sleepless nights, Kelly Kniss had wondered what had become of her home in the Florida Panhandle and the two dozen hens she and her husband Ryan had left behind after authorities ordered them to grab what they could...
New Mexico Forest Official Cites Rising Risk of Human-Caused Wildfires
May 11 2020 // The top administrator of a national forest in northern New Mexico says there’s an elevated risk of human-caused wildfires due to drying conditions and negligence by some forest visitors. Carson National Forest...
Wildfires Rage in Florida Panhandle; More Than 1K People Evacuated
May 8 2020 // Firefighters in the Florida Panhandle have been battling wildfires that forced some 1,600 people to evacuate from their homes, and a stretch of Interstate 10 remained closed in both directions Thursday morning due to...
Wildfire Danger High in Central Wisconsin
May 5 2020 // The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning on May 3 for 12 counties in central Wisconsin as the danger of wildfires remained high. A red flag warning is issued...
PG&E Purging Most of Board in Fallout From Bankruptcy, California Wildfires
May 4 2020 // PG&E Corp. will sweep out three quarters of its board of directors to start with a mostly clean slate when it emerges from a bankruptcy case triggered by deadly wildfires ignited in Northern California by the...
California Earthquake Authority Named Administrator of Wildfire Fund
Apr 29 2020 // The California Catastrophe Response Council, which oversees the Wildfire Fund, has formally named the California Earthquake Authority the fund’s administrator. The Wildfire Fund was established by the California...
Wisconsin Governor Issues Emergency Order Due to Wildfires
Apr 22 2020 // Wisconsin residents grappling with the coronavirus have something else to worry about now: wildfires. Gov. Tony Evers on April 21 declared statewide state of emergency in response to elevated wildfire conditions. The...
PG&E’s Bankruptcy Plan Heads Toward Approval in California
Apr 22 2020 // California regulators are being advised to approve Pacific Gas & Electric’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy with new controls designed to prevent a recurrence of the utility’s past bad behavior that has...
Six Things to Know About the Recent Impasse Between Regulators and Insurers in the Aftermath of California’s Devastating Wildfires
Apr 17 2020 // This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic. California’s 2017 and 2018 catastrophic wildfire events hit state insurers historically hard, with record-breaking losses of over $25 billion.1 2 Three years...
PG&E’s Plan to Pay $19M from California Wildfire Victims Fund OK’d
Apr 16 2020 // The Northern California victims of catastrophic wildfires caused by Pacific Gas & Electric’s decaying electrical grid will have at least $19 million siphoned way from a $13.5 billion fund for their losses to...
What if California Faces a Disaster During The Pandemic?
Apr 14 2020 // California has evacuation plans for earthquakes, floods, mudslides and, of course, wildfires, but what if one of those disasters occurs as the state is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak when everyone is being urged to...
Judge Won’t Approve California Wildfire Victims Letter Attacking PG&E
Apr 9 2020 // A federal judge has refused to put his stamp of approval on a letter to Northern California wildfire victims from attorneys who allege that Pacific Gas & Electric may be breaking its promises as it tries to preserve a...
Market Tumult Threatens PG&E Deal with California Wildfire Victims
Apr 8 2020 // Lawyers who negotiated a crucial $13.5 billion deal for the victims of deadly wildfires caused by Pacific Gas & Electric equipment are expressing serious doubts about whether the nation’s largest utility will be...
Firefighters Work to Contain North Carolina Wildfires
Apr 6 2020 // Firefighters kept working on Saturday to slow the spread of western North Carolina wildfires that have spread due to high winds, the U.S. Forest Service said. A fire that began on private property Friday in Haywood County...
Another Member PG&E California Wildfire Panel Resigns
Apr 6 2020 // The former chief financial officer for a Northern California city destroyed in a 2018 wildfire caused by Pacific Gas & Electric equipment is trying to upend the utility’s plan for getting out of bankruptcy...
Declarations
Apr 6 2020 // Delivery Aid “Insurers must cover delivery services for restaurants on personal auto insurance policies and must offer coverage for hired drivers and non-owned automobiles as a rider on a restaurant’s general...
