The Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025 broke the record for the costliest fire insurance losses in history, with the insured losses alone reaching $40 billion, according to a new report.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday that the total losses of the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire were $65 billion.
It cited a new report from Gallagher Re, a global reinsurance firm, that calculated the total losses of the wildfires. The firm wrote:
The insured losses from January’s Los Angeles wildfires are anticipated to reach USD40 billion, making it the costliest series of wildfire events for the insurance sector to date. From an insurance claims perspective, the losses are comparable to a so-called “peak peril” event, like a hurricane. Combined losses from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, for instance, were around USD44 billion.
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The secondary impact of wildfires can be severe. In February and March of 2025, heavy rain in Southern California caused flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows, which triggered evacuation orders for residences near burn scars.
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As both the frequency and severity of wildfires escalate, the extended impacts across society underscore the need for comprehensive strategies to mitigate risks and enhance recovery efforts. Addressing these challenges requires understanding the root cause of wildfire losses and collaborating across sectors for innovative solutions to safeguard communities and businesses.
Among the “root causes” identified by the firm: climate change and urban encroachment on wilderness.
The report did not address state and local governance failures, such as a lack of water in the local reservoir.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been quick to pre-deploy firefighting resources ahead of subsequent fires, but state and local leaders were unprepared for the Palisades and Eaton Fires. Asked what residents of Palisades should do when firefighters had run out of water, Newsom suggested that locals would “figure that out.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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