The Brief

Is it safe to do yard work? Should I test my house for asbestos? How can I know whether schools and parks are safe? These are questions hundreds of Tustin residents still don't have clear answers to more than a month after a fire torched a massive World War II-era hangar.

As the 17-story tall blimp hangar burned, testing by public health officials and asbestos experts showed the fire sent asbestos, lead, and other toxins spewing into the surrounding community. Debris from the fire was reported more than three miles from the site, according to county documents obtained by LAist.

Officials say air quality tests in recent weeks have shown no cause for concern, and specialized remediation crews continue to clean up asbestos-laden debris from the former military base and in the surrounding community.

The status of ash and soot is less certain — private testing inside some residents' homes has found asbestos and lead. Officials have not publicly released any test results from ash or soil since the early days of the fire.

Without access to more data and without a long-term strategy for testing, some residents say they don't feel safe.

"If I could, I would move tomorrow," Sean Storm, a Tustin resident, told LAist in a phone interview. Storm lives in the Columbus Square neighborhood, right across the street from the fire-gutted hangar, with his wife and four young kids.

He said his grandfather died from cardiac arrest after long-term exposure to asbestos. "His lungs were completely deteriorated from it," Storm said. "The doctor told us when he was dying it's like a small razor blade that just cuts you over and over with every breath."

Now Storm fears that asbestos-laden dust and ash from the fire could linger undetected in the grass and mulch that covers nearby parks and common areas in his neighborhood. "You're always going to wonder, am I putting my children at risk of a health factor later down the road?"

LAist interviewed and requested information from local, state and federal officials, and outside experts, about the post-fire recovery efforts and residents' health and safety concerns.

Many questions remain at least partially unanswered, but here's what we found out, including links to key documents and websites.

The historic blimp hangar, at right, seen as it burned on Nov. 7, 2023.

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Jae C. Hong

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Associated Press

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What’s known about potentially toxic building materials in the hangar?

Multiple assessments carried out in recent decades on the now-destroyed hangar and the other, nearly identical, blimp hangar nearby have found that asbestos and lead paint were used extensively throughout their construction.

Asbestos was present in roofing materials, wall panels, pipe insulation and floor tiles, according to a 2019 report. Some of this asbestos was "friable," meaning it breaks or crumbles easily and therefore poses a greater risk of being inhaled, which can cause long-term health consequences.

The wood that makes up the bulk of the construction was treated for fire-resistance with a product called Minalith. Chris Dunne, a Navy spokesperson, told LAist in an email that samples of the treated wood were analyzed in the past and found to contain "detectable concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, boron, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, phosphorus, lead, silicon, and zinc."

In the days after the fire first broke out on Nov. 7, air quality officials detected lead and arsenic in the smoke plume, but nowhere else, which Orange County Public Health Officer Regina Chinsio-Kwong told LAist was "reassuring."

She said her office also tested for lead at Legacy Magnet Academy and Heritage Elementary on the heaviest days of smoke and did not detect elevated levels. The two schools are located within a mile from the hangar that burned.

Oladele Ogunseitan, a public health professor at UC Irvine, told us the information about chemicals in the wood was "concerning."

"So far, the data which has been shared shows very low levels of these toxicants, but it is hard to tell the amount released into the air during the early hours of the fire igniting," Ogunseitan wrote in an email to LAist. That's because air quality testing for asbestos and other potential toxins didn't take place until the afternoon of Nov. 7 — about 12 hours after the fire began, according to public documents.

Veterans Sports Park, across the street from where the hangar burned, reopened on Dec. 13, more than a month after the fire broke out.

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Jill Replogle

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What’s known about air and soil quality in adjacent communities?

Here's what testing in the community has shown:

• The day after the fire broke out, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) detected asbestos in debris and ash falling on the surrounding community. Samples of debris collected from around the hangar detected up to 37% asbestos.  
• A mobile air monitoring device deployed by AQMD on the day the fire broke out and for several subsequent days found elevated levels of arsenic and lead inside the area of the smoke plume. However, the majority of results showed no elevated levels of heavy metals, according to public officials and documents. 
• After the first week of the fire, which burned through Dec. 1, air quality testing has not shown elevated levels of asbestos, lead, arsenic or other heavy metals. 

You can see the latest air quality reports and results from early testing on the city's website. Reports of particulate matter, a standard measure of air pollution, are posted daily on the city's website. Currently, air quality is being tested at 30 monitors around the hangar site and throughout the community by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Officials we spoke with say asbestos has been detected primarily in solid pieces of debris from the fire. They say that’s why the city’s cleanup response has focused on removing that debris from the community.

"Right now, at least, we think that the fallout, the fines [fine particulate matter], the soot from the plume probably was not as big a problem," Ben Castellana, on-scene coordinator for the EPA, told LAist in an interview late last week.

"But certainly the debris, the large pieces of the hanger that landed in the community, those needed to be removed as quickly as possible."

Chinsio-Kwong, the Orange County health officer, told LAist that all of the data collected by public health and environmental officials in recent weeks "has been reassuring."

Many residents have asked health officials to do more testing of soil and dirt in communities adjacent to the fire — or, if testing has already occurred, to share it with the community. (A spokesperson for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control told LAist they had information to share. We will update this story as soon as we learn more.)

Storm, the Tustin resident, noted the extensive measures being taken to secure the soil and ash immediately around the hangar. Tustin hangar fire cleanup crews applied a plastic substance to the soil around the burnt structure early this month to prevent asbestos from getting kicked up.

"If you're saying the dirt on the opposite side of the street is not safe, then how is the dirt on my side of the street safe?" he asked.

The EPA is monitoring air quality around the perimeter of the former military base and in multiple locations in the surrounding community.

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What’s known about air and soil quality in nearby schools?

According to county documents, in the days after the fire broke out, asbestos-laden debris was detected at Tustin schools, including at Hicks Canyon Elementary, which is about three miles from the burn site, and at Tustin High School, which is two miles from the site.

All Tustin Unified schools were closed for several days starting on Nov. 9. Most schools were reopened by Nov. 15 after clearance from the district-contracted asbestos consultant.

Chinsio-Kwong, the public health officer, said air quality authorities read up on toxic materials in the building when the fire broke out and consequently, tested the air for a broad range of heavy metals and volatile organic compounds.

At Heritage Elementary School, which was open during the first two days of the fire, Chinsio-Kwong said certified asbestos consultants took air samples and dust samples using a technique called micro-vacuuming to test for asbestos. Those tests came back negative, she said, adding that she believed they were conducted in heavily trafficked areas of the school.

Parents of students at the school, including Storm, have asked for details about the testing, including how much of the school has been tested and whether outdoor surfaces and playground equipment have been tested.

Storm said he was concerned safety issues may linger if “classroom window seals and door frames and carpet in every single classroom” haven't been tested.

Chinsio-Kwong said she didn't have precise details about the testing. The Tustin Unified School District has not responded to LAist's multiple requests for interviews and/or comment since Dec. 5.

At a community meeting on Dec. 7, Tustin school board trustee Allyson Muñiz Damikolas echoed Chinsio-Kwong, saying that preliminary testing at Heritage and Legacy, which are both still closed, was "encouraging," but she said the district did not yet have final results.

As for when the students at Heritage and Legacy might go back, Chinsio-Kwong said she won't recommend reopening those schools until the work to take down the hangar doors and adjacent structures is complete and the resulting dust and debris is secured, "so that once kids return to school, they can freely run around outside instead of being indoors."

That work is not expected to be completed until later this month. So far, the hangar doors have been lowered. Work to remove the "pillbox" structures that framed the doors started Tuesday, according to the city's latest update.

Work to lower the doors of the hangar finished on Dec. 11. This image was taken Dec. 7, when the work was beginning.

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Did ash and debris contaminate homes?

According to county documents, some 10,000 homes were affected by the hangar fire in the cities of Tustin, Irvine and Santa Ana.

Public agencies have not tested inside of people's homes affected by the fire. But some residents have paid to get their own testing done. Lana Clay-Monaghan, a Tustin resident, has publicly shared an informal survey she spearheaded of residents near the fire.

Of the 19 residents who said they had indoor testing done by a certified asbestos contractor, nine reported results showing the presence of asbestos. Chinsio-Kwong, the public health official, told LAist one resident who took the survey had emailed her the results of her home test. Chinsio-Kwong said was still working with experts to understand exactly what to take away from the results.

Castellana, the EPA coordinator, said a resident had also shared home testing results with him. But Castellana said the results lacked important details. They didn't include the lab report or specify the detection limit used and therefore don’t “really answer a lot of questions."

"If I test for asbestos in my house, for example, you're probably going to find a fiber or two," Castellana said. "It's naturally occurring, it's in a lot of manufactured products, both in our houses and building materials, as well as cars. … So, it's all over in our environment. And that's not to say it also hasn't come from the [hangar] site.”

Castellana said he hoped asbestos consultants hired by residents would give thorough information about their test results, including whether their home is safe.

Asbestos consultants are required to be certified by the state of California. You can check whether a consultant has up-to-date certification on the website of the state Department of Industrial Relations. You can also look up contractors to see whether they're certified to perform asbestos-related work.

Clay-Monaghan said she and her family, including two toddlers, moved out of their home after it tested positive for asbestos and lead.

"We had to make the difficult and expensive decision to remove ourselves from that environment," she said. She told LAist she hopes to move back after her home is fully remediated.

What are the health risks associated with asbestos and lead?

Exposure to asbestos can cause some forms of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute, and usually emerges decades after the initial exposure. Health risks increase with heavier and/or longer-term exposure.

Smoking severely increases the risk of developing cancer for those exposed to asbestos. "So the major lesson that I would want to impart to all the residents and children of the area is don't smoke," said Richard Castriotta, a pulmonologist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.

Exposure to lead is especially dangerous for children under the age of 6. Even small amounts can cause long-term damage to the brain and nervous system, according to the O.C. Health Care Agency. Blood testing is the only way to determine whether a child has lead poisoning.

An empty park in the Columbus Square neighborhood, which was hardest hit by the fire, on Dec. 1, 2023. All city parks were open as of Dec. 13.

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Should I clean my house and/or yard?

Outside

Chinsio-Kwong said that if a resident's yard has been inspected and remediated by a certified asbestos contractor, it should be OK to mow the lawn and do yard work. If you still need help from a certified contractor, contact the city's hotline: 714-426-2444 or report the debris through the city's online portal.

"As long as there's no longer any debris, then technically, if they were given the green light, they should be able to return to landscaping activities and mowing and leaf blowing," she said.

Castriotta, the pulmonologist, said mowing the lawn shouldn't be a problem since most electric lawn mowers collect grass directly into a bag. He said wearing an N95 mask while doing yard work would significantly decrease the risk of exposure.

"They have to live their lives," Castriotta said of residents. "If there's a chance of the ash being around in an inhalational form, then an N95 mask will protect you."

If a resident is still waiting for the city's asbestos contractors to assess their yard and collect fire debris, Chinsio-Kwong said they should wait to do yard work so as not to disturb the debris.

According to the latest update, of the 1,094 debris reports submitted to the city's online portal, some 75% have been remediated and cleared.

But residents have wondered aloud whether this clearance really means their homes are safe since the city's contracted asbestos experts are only picking up large pieces of debris.

At a community meeting last week, Darren Terry told LAist his rain gutters are still full of ash from the fire. He was frustrated homes have been cleared by the city’s asbestos contractors when the roofs, windows, gutters and plants have not been remediated.

Chinsio-Kwong said residents should rinse off or wipe down their window screens and doors if they still contain soot from the fire.

Inside

Chinsio-Kwong recommends that residents whose homes were affected by the Tustin fire use wet wipes to clean surfaces and a vacuum with a HEPA filter on floors.

She told LAist she has been looking for guidance in the residential cleaning studies carried out after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed following the 2001 terrorist attack, spreading toxic dust over streets and into apartments in lower Manhattan.

An EPA study dated November 2008 of different cleaning methods in contaminated homes concluded that wet wiping surfaces and vacuuming the floor — sometimes multiple times, depending on the amount of contamination — "was successful in reducing concentrations to levels below health-based benchmarks."

A separate study found that dusting or sweeping without using water was associated with high numbers of respiratory problems among residents affected by the tower collapses.

Can I run my HVAC system?

Chinsio-Kwong said residents can use their HVAC systems as long as they have a well-maintained filter — the EPA recommends filters rated "MERV 13” or higher to remove fine particulate matter from smoke. Residents may need to replace their HVAC filter or, for help, consult an HVAC technician.

Chinsio-Kwong acknowledged that advice on whether Tustin residents should run their HVAC systems initially wavered in the early days of the fire. She said that's because she was concerned people might not know whether their HVAC system has an updated filter, which is key to safety.

More than 600 disaster remediation workers have been dispatched to clean up fire debris tainted with asbestos on the former military base and in surrounding neighborhoods.

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Is there funding assistance to pay for home testing?

Asbestos

Currently, public agencies are not offering assistance for asbestos testing inside of homes affected by the Tustin hangar fire. At a recent community meeting, Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said state law prohibited the county from using general taxpayer money to set up a fund for individual homeowners affected by the fire.

"We just don't have a legal right to do that," he said.

Some homeowners told LAist their insurance has paid for testing inside their homes. But, according to Clay-Monaghan's informal survey of residents, nearly three-quarters said they couldn't afford it.

One-quarter of the 1,075 homes in the Columbus Square neighborhood, which was hardest hit by fire debris, are designated for very low- to moderate-income families.

Clay-Monaghan said residents who had paid for testing reported paying around $2,500.

If the state declares the Tustin fire an emergency, it could free up resources for the city and for individuals. Wagner said the state had been "dragging its feet" on a declaration.

Brian Ferguson, spokesperson for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, told LAist in an email earlier this month that the city and county would first have to demonstrate that "effective response is beyond [their] capabilities" in order for the state to step in with aid.

Ferguson said Wednesday there were no additional updates. He did not respond to our request to clarify the damage assessment process.

Initial damage estimates totaled about $31.7 million as of mid-November, according to the emergency management team that coordinated the initial response to the fire. That includes money spent by the county, Tustin Unified School District and city of Tustin.

The final total is likely to be far higher. Last week, Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard told LAist that the city had committed $30 million of its own funds to date.

Lead

If you’re worried about potential lead in your home from the Tustin fire and have small children, the O.C. Health Care Agency has a program that provides consultation and assistance for environmental investigations. Call 714-567-6220 for more information.

Chinsio-Kwong, the public health officer, said parents concerned that their children may have been exposed to lead should have them tested by a physician.

Crews working to clean up after the Tustin hangar fire.

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What is the status of cleanup on the former military base?

Work finished Monday, Dec. 11, to remove the hangar's 150-ft. tall metal and wooden doors, which were lowered to the ground and will be covered in an adhesive substance designed to keep dust and potentially harmful particulate matter from getting into the surrounding air or soil.

Dunne, the Navy spokesperson, told LAist that the "tackifier" substance, trademarked Gorilla-Snot, is being used to cover debris in the footprint of the destroyed hangar. The Navy does not have plans to spread the tackifier on other parts of the 84-acre former base, he said, but city contractors are cleaning up fire debris on the land.

Asbestos-laden debris collected on the former military base will remain there until the Navy develops a disposal plan.

Some relief for property owners?

The O.C. assessor recently sent a letter to property owners in the vicinity of the fire advising that they could qualify for a temporary value adjustment to their home, meaning lowered property taxes, if they can demonstrate that the fire caused $10,000 or more in damages.

It's unclear how many, if any, homes could meet that threshold. For more information, you can call the county assessor’s office at 714-834-2727.

We’re getting pretty close to the midterm election, so get ready to fill out your ballot. If you’re a mail-in voter, you should be receiving your ballot soon if it hasn’t come already (mine showed up last week). As usual, there are many complicated props to read through, but we’ve got you covered with our L.A. and O.C. voter guides. After all that hard work, you’ll need to get out and do something fun.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can get a preview of Saturday’s Taste of Soul festival in South L.A.; check out an inside view of an event we’ve featured here before, the Sh*tty Movie Club; and Dave Grohl talks to us about the Soundstage of Hope fundraiser.

Music

Here's a selection of Licorice Pizza's music picks this week:

Wednesday 

• Lucky Daye at Grammy Museum
• Hip-hop legend Big Daddy Kane begins his two-night run at the Blue Note 

Thursday

• Role Model plays the first of two nights at the Greek
• Dinosaur Jr. at the Bellwether

Friday

• Juanes at the Forum
• Boy Harsher at the Palladium

Saturday 

• Peaches dances the pain away at the Fonda
• Wale is at the Blue Note (he’ll be there Sunday too)

Sunday

• Turnstile with Boy Harsher at the Observatory
• Tony-winner Shoshana Bean at El Rey

Monday 

• Folk singer Laura Veirs plays the Peppermint Club
• London’s Chinchilla plays Pacific Electric

Tuesday 

• UK chanteuse Jessie Ware plays the Greek
• Basement, DIIV and many more at the Shrine Expo Hall

Events

Beverly Hills Witch Walk

Saturday, Oct. 17, 9:30 a.m. 
503 N. Palm Drive, Beverly Hills
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Love Beverly Hills

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Bring your pointy hat and broomstick, then join your coven for a witchy walk through the spooky (but also… sun-spackled) streets of Beverly Hills. Hosted by women’s walking group Los Angelistas, the walk features historical landmarks like the Spadena House and wraps with 30% off treats at Sweet Angeles Bakery.

An Evening on Journalism & Public Safety in Los Angeles

Monday, Oct. 19, 6 p.m. 
L.A. Press Club 
2535 W Temple St., Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Los Angeles Reporting Collective

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Los Angeles Reporting Collective (LARC) and the Association of Gun Violence Reporters (AGVR) host a discussion about journalism and public safety at the L.A. Press Club. Join reporters from The Trace, The Guardian, LA Local and Southern California News Group for the talk, preceded by a screening of the short documentary about surveillance, Flock Walk.

No Fest 

Saturday, Oct. 17, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Beyond Baroque 
681 Venice Blvd., Venice 
COST: FROM $21.99; MORE INFO

Save poetry in L.A.! No Fest features an open mic, poetry readings, art, music and local vendors, all in support of Beyond Baroque, the historic Venice space that has supported poetry in Los Angeles since its founding in 1968. The event will also be streamed on YouTube.

Cynthia Erivo: 'Let Me Sing to You' 

Thursday, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m.
Hollywood Bowl
2301 Highland Ave., Hollywood
COST: FROM $33.39; MORE INFO 

Cynthia Erivo returns to the Hollywood Bowl.

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LAURENT HOU/Hans Lucas

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AFP via Getty Images

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When Wicked star Cynthia Erivo last took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, she was playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, and she received a minutes-long standing ovation in the middle of the second act after “Gethsemane.” It was — I am not exaggerating — one of the most astonishing performances I’ve ever seen at the Bowl or anywhere else. Relive the magic with her solo show, featuring favorites from Wicked and much more.

Street Food Cinema: Boo-ze, Bite and Frights

Friday and Saturday, Oct. 16-17; 23-24.
Heritage Square Museum
3800 Homer St., Montecito Heights
COST: FROM $53; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Street Food Cinema

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Spooky season is upon us, and the next two weekends you can get your fill of scary movies and bites to go with them at Street Food Cinema's fourth annual immersive Halloween experience, Boo-ze, Bites and Frights at the historic village of Heritage Square Museum. They'll be screening horror classics old and new, including Nightmare on Elm Street, Sinners and Blade.

Come From Away

Through Sunday, Nov. 8 
A Noise Within 
3352 E Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
COST: FROM $52.75; MORE INFO

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Craig Schwartz

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A Noise Within

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Come From Away is one of the best musicals of the 2010s, with a heartfelt score and a story that has stood the test of time through runs on Broadway and in the West End, plus a successful filmed version on Apple TV. The show follows the story of the town of Gander, which played host to passengers stranded when flights were shut down mid-path following the attacks on Sept. 11.

Narsiso Martinez

Through Saturday, Nov. 7
Charlie James Gallery 
969 Chung King Road, Chinatown
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Narsiso Martinez

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Charlie James Gallery

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I first saw Narsiso Martinez’s work when he won the Frieze LA Impact Prize in 2023. Since then, his stirring portraits of migrant workers emblazoned on CSA boxes and Whole Foods bags have been showing up everywhere, from the Hammer to the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Don’t miss this solo show at Charlie James, where Martinez explores the stories of farmworkers and California kitchens across a variety of mixed media.

The Peterson Show

Through Monday, Oct. 26
Echo Theatre Company 
Atwater Village Theater
3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village
COST: $46.90; MORE INFO 

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Cooper Bates

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Lucy Pollack Public Relations

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I heard about The Peterson Show from one of my favorite L.A. newsletters, Tasbeeh Herwees’s No Bad Days, which spoke to writer Janine Nabors about her new play. It takes inspiration from '80s sitcoms and is loosely based on the Bill Cosby scandal, reuniting five former child stars when the legacy of their TV dad goes bust. It’s only on through Oct. 26, so don’t miss it.

This is about the time of year when the country engages in the Great American Biennial Polling Freakout.

A few weeks before an election, lots of people start to really engage. They read headlines showing this candidate or that candidate leading a race. People wonder who's going to win and whether the polls are right or wrong. And it all often leads to a blend of anticipation mixed with confusion and anxiety.

Stop and breathe. All that needs to be known from the polls at this point is that over the last several months, the compass needle has moved more in Democrats' direction. That's it. They are the favorites to win the House and are within striking distance of winning the Senate, something that was seen as a long shot when this election cycle began.

That's based not just on the polls but on conversations with campaigns and on-the-ground reporting. But here are some tips and things to remember as the deluge of polls comes your way:

1. Polls are not meant to be predictive.

They are snapshots in time of when those surveys were conducted.

2. They're also not as precise and specific as people want them to be.

They're more like fuzzy targets. Remember: Polls have margins of error. So when someone has a 2-point lead, that's not a lead at all. If a poll has a 3 percentage-point margin of error, this means that candidate could have a 5-point lead or be losing by a point.

3. Look for transparency.

There has been a proliferation of not-so-great polls this cycle, some driven by AI, others without long track records and even a pollster exposed to be fake. Good pollsters show their work with detailed methodology pages. If you can't find a methodology, that's a red flag.

4. The quality of state-level polling is not very good.

With the decline of local journalism, there has been a decline in well-conducted, rigorous and frequent state polls. There is less money for those local outlets to pay for polling, which can be very expensive. So take those state poll averages with a grain of salt.

5. Go beyond the top lines.

Horse-race polling isn't the best use of polls. Polls are best when measuring attitudes over time to help inform us of how Americans are feeling and thinking about key issues. There is so much more underneath those top-line numbers, from job approval ratings and who is most motivated to vote, to which party is more trusted to handle the issues people care about most — and so much more.

The fact is that many of these races are expected to be close. Millions of votes are not yet cast, and anyone professing to know exactly what's going to happen is lying.

When you're looking at who's up and who's down, just remember that horse-race polling is like sprinkles on top of a bowl of ice cream. Lots of people like sprinkles, but if all you eat is the sprinkles, you just wind up with a mouth full of wax without ever getting to the good stuff.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Insurance is a social contract. When you sign up with State Farm or Allstate for home insurance, you confirm your membership in a community — your money will go to fix someone else’s burned or flooded home, and their money will in turn support yours. We let insurance companies sell policies on a private market, and we elect or appoint government officials to oversee that market to protect the interests of homeowners.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, but that’s not how it worked for Lynn McIntyre.

When McIntyre’s mother died in 2022, she willed McIntyre her longtime house in the “Alphabets,” a charming neighborhood not far from the coast in western Los Angeles. McIntyre and her daughter had only lived there for a year when her insurance company, Liberty Mutual, withdrew her fire coverage. She couldn’t find another private company to cover the home’s fire risk, so she enrolled in the California FAIR Plan, a state-backed “insurer of last resort,” paying another $5,000 a year in addition to her regular home insurance from Liberty.

After the Palisades Fire raged through the Alphabets in early 2025, McIntyre’s small bungalow was still standing. But it was full of smoke and ash that had crept in through vents and windows, and her belongings were stained beyond recognition by smoke. When she filed a claim with the FAIR Plan, the plan adjusters told her she was out of luck. They would pay for a temporary apartment, but nothing else.

Lynn McIntyre stands in front of her damaged home in the Alphabet Streets. McIntyre’s home suffered extensive smoke damage during the Palisades Fire, but the California FAIR Plan offered her almost no rebuilding assistance.

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Jake Bittle

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Grist

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McIntyre, who had worked for years as a real estate broker, spent months battling with 10 different adjusters and dozens of FAIR Plan representatives. It didn’t work. The employees batted her away at every turn, hiring third-party adjusters failed to get her anywhere, and her attorney professed himself confounded by FAIR’s obstinance. Even as most of her neighbors cleared their debris and started building new fire-resilient homes, many of them much larger than their old properties, her old bungalow sat stained with smoke.

It was only in late August, more than 18 months after the wildfire, that she was about to start repairing her home — not with insurance money, but with a nearly $200,000 loan from the federal government that she will someday have to pay back. To make matters worse, FAIR has been trying to cut off her apartment expenses, telling her that power and water have come back online in her area and that she needs to move back home — never mind that her house still has boarded-up windows and a scorched exterior. Meanwhile, Liberty Mutual informed her this summer that they would be canceling her non-fire coverage.

“The next time a fire comes through, I'm just going to light it on fire, because I'm not going to go through this again,” McIntyre said wryly as we stood in her doorway, construction machines rattling at the other houses around us.

An aerial view of reconstruction efforts underway in Pacific Palisades after the Palisades Fire. Many residents of the community lost insurance coverage before the fire, forcing them to enroll in the California FAIR Plan.

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Qian Weizhong

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VCG via Getty Images via Grist

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Ensuring that Californians like McIntyre have access to affordable insurance falls to an elected official that many Californians have likely never heard of: the insurance commissioner. The commissioner, one of eight elected state officials in California, regulates the companies that provide fire, home, and auto coverage in the Golden State.

Over the last eight years, the incumbent insurance commissioner presided over what parties on all sides have called a “disaster,” a “crisis” and a “collapse” in the state’s home insurance market. Now, as the current commissioner terms out, two Democratic candidates — Ben Allen and Jane Kim — have emerged claiming they can fix it. These candidates embody a debate in the Democratic Party about the best way to adapt to climate change. Allen, an established legislator representing Pacific Palisades, wants to rebuild the market, and Kim, a left-wing organizer from San Francisco, wants to ditch the idea of a private market altogether.

Whoever wins in November will inherit an insurance system battered by a decade of devastating wildfires, insurers pulling out of the state, and other upheaval. Climate change and decades of poor forest management have turned California’s woodlands into tinderboxes, and the problem will only get worse as the planet continues to warm. The current crisis in the insurance market began with a series of unprecedented wildfires between 2015 and 2020. These fires scorched around 4 million acres and destroyed 35,000 homes, many in areas that had never been known to burn. Insurance companies like State Farm and Farmers had to pay out billions of dollars in claims, enough to negate the profits they had made from writing fire insurance policies over the previous two decades.

The companies believed they were charging Californians far too little, but the price of insurance isn’t elastic like the price of gasoline or paper towels. Insurers have to seek permission from the state insurance commissioner to raise their prices. California was strict about those price hikes, and it blocked insurers’ attempts to pass their post-fire bill onto the state’s homeowners. The insurance industry’s response was to ditch California. They dropped tens of thousands of customers across the state, and companies like State Farm announced they would withdraw from the state altogether and cease writing any new policies.

“There's something broken that so many of us are facing the same issues,” McIntyre said, “and they just think they can just ride roughshod right on over all of us.”

The lack of available insurance is starting to hurt the state’s economy: Around 1 in 7 California realtors said they had a home sale fall through in 2024 due to insurance issues, the state’s FAIR plan ran out of claims money last year, and average premiums could rise by 16% this year. The trend is now spreading out of the most flammable zones, and many homeowners even in low-risk areas are struggling to get insurance.

The outcome of the November election could determine the trajectory of insurance bills for millions of Californians and decide the fate of fire-prone areas around the state. The election will also serve as a bellwether for how voters in the United States want to approach the expensive and difficult process of adapting to a warming world, and whoever wins will have to turn that mandate into a policy that can offer short-term relief. This would be a daunting job under the best of times, and these are not the best of times.

A sign in front of a State Farm insurance office in Pinole, California. State Farm is one of several insurance companies that dropped policies in risky areas following California’s spate of large wildfires.

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Justin Sullivan

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Getty Images via Grist

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The roots of the insurance crisis

The current insurance crisis is new, but its origins are very old. Over the last century, California has built millions of homes in the “wildland-urban interface,” the flammable zone outside the state’s major cities. Developers rushed out into the mountains around Lake Tahoe and the desert hills east of San Diego and built without any thought for fire mitigation, throwing up homes with wooden sidings and flammable fences on crowded lots. These are the areas that are burning up in the state’s recent wildfires, and the areas that insurers are dropping en masse.

This history of unwise development has created a bizarre situation that the scholar Carolyn Kousky has dubbed “a tale of two markets.” Prices ticked up in places that weren’t risky, like wet San Francisco and low-lying Fresno, but the market went haywire in risky areas like Malibu and the High Sierras. Nearly half of all households in high-fire-risk areas lost their insurance between 2018 and 2024. The California FAIR Plan, which was intended as a fringe supplement, became the only option for thousands of homeowners. Since 2018, it has swallowed up a huge share of policies in risky areas, growing from less than 1 to 5% of the market today. In some places, it reached 80% of market share.

In theory, California voters have some influence over their haywire insurance market. Every state has an insurance commissioner, but California is one of around a dozen states where that is an elected position. The fact that it’s elected at all is a testament to the strength of the state’s pro-consumer slant — in 1988, voters who were incensed about high car insurance prices passed a measure that turned it from an appointed position into an elected one.

In practice, this is a job no one should want. The commissioner has the power to approve or deny rate increases, and to police the industry’s compliance with state law. They also oversee the FAIR Plan, the state-backed insurer, which offers limited and expensive coverage to people like McIntyre who can’t get it on the private market. But the commissioner can’t do much else to make private insurers offer coverage or to reduce overall fire risk in wildland areas.

“The insurance commissioner has a lot of power and authority himself or herself that they should use, but the insurance commissioner alone cannot address these challenges,” said Dave Jones, who served as commissioner between 2010 and 2019.

California’s incumbent insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara, right, talks with homeowner Bruce Breslau following a 2024 public hearing in Los Angeles. Lara has faced criticism for failing to prevent private insurance companies from pulling out of risky areas.

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Robert Gauthier

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images via Grist

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The outgoing commissioner, Ricardo Lara, has been in office for almost the entirety of the state’s fire-induced market collapse. Lara vacillated between cozying up with the insurers or clamping down on them and running the risk that they might flee the state. First he pledged to reject all insurance industry campaign money, then accepted some of that money, then appeared to cover for it by stalling on rate increases, which led insurers like State Farm to drop more policies.

Lara’s attempt at resolving the crisis was to strike a deal with the companies. He allowed them to pass on the cost of their reinsurance (or insurance for insurance companies) to customers, and he also allowed them to use forward-looking catastrophe models to predict future risk, something every other state had already allowed. That would translate to higher rates, and in return the insurers had to commit to writing more policies in the risky fire areas they wanted to abandon. But the deal turned out to be full of loopholes — insurers can meet their mandate without returning to the riskiest areas, and the state FAIR Plan has kept absorbing more market share after the Los Angeles fires in 2025. Lara said in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year that the industry had “bullied” him. (His office declined interview requests, and representatives for the FAIR Plan did not respond to requests for comment.)

The next insurance commissioner

Despite the entrenched nature of the state’s insurance problems, a dozen candidates piled into the election to replace Lara. This led to a crowded primary between four Democrats, five Republicans and two independents; none of the candidates had the funding to run a full statewide campaign, and there was limited public polling. The results were surprising even to the candidates. The top two candidates who advanced to the November runoff were Democrats. In first place with around 27% was Kim, a former San Francisco supervisor and Bernie Sanders ally who had pitched a government-run single-payer program for disaster insurance. In second place was Allen, the state senator who represents the Palisades and is one of the legislature’s foremost experts on insurance.

Allen and Kim agree on a lot. They both believe in simplifying typical insurance policies and forcing companies to be transparent about their spending and investment in fossil fuels. They both believe in beefing up the FAIR Plan so it would cover smoke and other damages, which would have saved McIntyre from months of confusion and delay. They have both vowed to crack down on insurers who delay and nitpick claim payments after disasters. And they have both rejected campaign contributions from the insurance industry.

Where they differ is on the question of how to get people off the FAIR Plan and stabilize the market — in other words, on the fundamental question of the state’s insurance system. Allen believes that if the state allows insurers to raise rates on risky homes, invests to harden homes in vulnerable areas, and takes a data-driven approach to measuring wildfire risk, it can entice insurers back and restore a healthy market. Kim would prefer to discard the market altogether. She proposes creating a state-run public insurance program for all homes and all disasters, replacing private companies and the FAIR Plan. Rather than doling out profits to investors, this program would spend its excess revenue to harden old homes against wildfire. Private insurance companies could still write coverage for burglary and other perils, but the state government would collect all fire insurance and pay out all claims, a model based on similar programs in New Zealand and France.

The philosophical debate in the election is much deeper than a question of state policies or affordability — it’s about whether the private market can protect us against climate change at all.

State Senator Ben Allen hosts a discussion with local leaders and residents to mark 100 days since the Palisades Fire.

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Carlin Stiehl

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images via Grist

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Allen believes it can. He decided to run for commissioner after the Palisades Fire scorched a good portion of his district, plunging many of his close friends and acquaintances into a hell of displacement and insurance litigation. (Indeed, many of the Palisades homeowners I met knew him on a first-name basis, including McIntyre, who is supporting him in the election.) Even before that, he had already spent several years leading state legislative committees on insurance, energy, and wildfire risk, making him arguably the most qualified person in the state for the commissioner job.

“I think we need someone in this office who really understands climate science, who understands the markets, who understands the legislature,” he said. The Palisades Fire, he said, gave him a “level of understanding from going through the experience that is just different” — he heard about friends trying to itemize vaporized dining room furniture and saw phosphate pollution harming marine mammals in the water off his home in Santa Monica.

Rather than use the insurance commissioner post to push for a major statutory change like Kim’s public fund, Allen speaks about the commissioner as having a poder de convocatoria, a Spanish phrase that translates to “convening power.” He wants to bring together the state agencies and the insurance industry to have a real conversation about reducing fire risk and cajole the state’s market back into existence. He has just passed a bill that offers low-interest loans to homeowners who want to fire-harden their homes. He wants to pursue a sort of grand bargain with the industry, speeding up rate increase decisions while also disciplining the insurers who delay and deny claims.

Kim’s audacious proposal may be gaining more traction than Allen’s proposed compromise. She outperformed Allen in the primary in almost every county, including in his home county of Los Angeles, and given her progressive background, she did fairly well in the rural and red parts of the state. She admits her strong performance is partially “a mystery to me,” but attributes it to the fact that many voters are fed up with the insurance industry.

California insurance commissioner candidate Jane Kim speaks to reporters during a rally in San Francisco. Kim is pitching a single-payer disaster insurance model that would replace the private market for wildfire coverage.

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Stephen Lam

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San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images via Grist

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“There's this sense of immense unfairness, and once we articulate the problem, and then on top of that, actually propose big policy ideas, I think that that resonates,” she told me. We were speaking at a home in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights, where Kim was attending a fundraiser for the radical climate activism group Climate Defiance.

Some experts are skeptical of a government takeover in the style Kim is proposing. Jones, the former insurance commissioner, said the program has two key flaws. First, Kim’s promise to keep insurance affordable could mean keeping prices too low on mansions in fire-prone areas, where homeowners may currently pay premiums that are inadequate to their risk. Second, insurers in California are required to have tens of billions of dollars in extra cash to pay during big loss events, and Kim’s new fund would have to find that money in a state whose public budget is already strained.

“Not only does she not come clean as to where the money's going to come from, if her thought is that it's going to come from the general fund of the state of California, good luck,” said Jones. He pointed out that the model Kim cites in New Zealand is far smaller than California’s, has low coverage limits, and doesn’t cover fires. (Allen described the proposal as “red meat, sugar rush stuff,” and said taxpayers would end up footing the bill if the public plan lost money.)

Kim allows that the legislature might not jump for her public insurance fund, but she has a compromise in her back pocket — one not dissimilar from Allen’s own agenda. Instead of creating a single-payer insurance program that would use profits to fund fire resilience, the commissioner could turn the FAIR Plan into such a program. The plan already pools money from all the state’s big insurers, and Kim could force them to pay an extra fee that would fund hardening for FAIR Plan homes. She returned to this theme when she delivered a stump speech to the activists in the Presidio Heights living room, saying that private companies would never act on their own to reduce the state’s fire risk.

“What the insurance industry does is that they price risk, but they don't actually address it,” she said. If that’s the case, she argues, then the industry shouldn’t be the one charged with keeping Californians safe from climate disasters.

For all their other points of alignment, this question represents the major philosophical disagreement between Allen and Kim. Allen agrees that the industry has not yet acted to reduce California’s enormous fire risk, but he believes that it can fill that role — and he can be the one to make that happen.

“The insurance commissioner is uniquely positioned to bring the insurance to the table … and actually say to the insurance industry, ‘OK, guys, you've got to be a part of the solution here,’” Allen said.

A daunting challenge

The problem for both Kim and Allen is that reducing risk is very difficult.

Take the case of Tony Byers. He is a retired electric utility worker and a longtime resident of Placerville, an old mining town high in the forest-covered hills east of Sacramento. He bought insurance from AAA for years, but the company dropped him after a 2022 fire burned a nearby stretch of the Sierras. State Farm gave him a quote, but then rejected him because it claimed he didn’t have a fire hydrant near his house, even though he did. Byers ended up going with Lemonade, the online insurer, and even paid to have some flammable trees removed at the company’s request, but last year they told him they were leaving California. He ended up on the FAIR Plan, and he now pays $3,400 a year for fire insurance alone, triple what he used to pay. Byers lives at the end of a narrow mountain road, and if he wants to get back on a private insurance plan, he’d likely have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit his property, which is a lot more than he can afford on a retiree’s budget.

The only people who can opt out of this gauntlet of risk reduction are those who can pay for elite coverage. That was the case for Kevin Roberts, a retired golf course owner who lives in Huntington Palisades, a wealthy neighborhood on the edge of the Palisades Fire burn scar. Roberts likely couldn’t get fire coverage for his two-story Spanish colonial from bigger insurers like State Farm, but years ago a former fraternity brother told him about a company called Chubb that offered boutique insurance at high prices. The company now charges him more than $30,000 a year for his coverage on a “surplus lines” policy that isn’t subject to state regulations. It’s an eye-watering payment, but the company came through with a $2.65 million payout for smoke damage after the fire. Many of the state’s wealthiest homeowners are already on this unregulated market: the number of surplus lines policies in California has doubled over the last four years to around 1.3 million.

“You'll pay more, but if you need them, they'll deliver,” said Roberts.

Neither Byers nor Roberts expressed strong feelings about the insurance commissioner’s election, and indeed, both candidates will face tremendous barriers before they can address the issues that someone like Byers faces in Placerville. That’s because scaling California’s efforts to reduce more than a century of fire risk is one of the most daunting adaptation efforts faced by any place in the United States. The challenge is not just in finding the money to help homeowners who can’t do it themselves, but in figuring out how to reduce risk for millions of old and ill-built homes.

The day after Kim’s fundraiser, I met two employees from North Coast Opportunities, a poverty-fighting organization that serves Lake County, north of San Francisco. The organization is the first to receive money from a $117 million state grant program designed to retrofit whole communities against wildfire. The organization chose to focus on a tight-packed community called Kelseyville, where hundreds of homes cluster on small lots against the side of a windy mountain ridge. As the employees from North Coast drove me through the area, it became clear just how hard it will be to achieve the scaled-up resilience that both Allen and Kim want.

Lake County has an urgent need for this. The mountainous area is among the state’s most vulnerable to wildfire — some 85% of its land area has burned since the turn of the century — and it is also one of its poorest counties. Insurers have abandoned the area en masse, forcing many people onto the FAIR Plan, or causing older homeowners to go without insurance altogether.

The state program is the exact kind of intervention that insurers have long said will induce them to offer more coverage and stop raising rates. The nonprofit can give each participating home in Kelseyville about $70,000 to fund easy tweaks that will stop ignitions — such as removing trees from around homes, replacing vinyl siding with fiber cement, and deconstructing flammable wooden decks. The mitigated houses don’t look much different from the old ones, except for the emptier yards and fresh paint, but even these tiny fireproofing changes required painstaking work. North Coast has had to ask contractors to redo flawed retrofits and cajole local hardware stores into selling fireproof equipment. Many homeowners aren’t interested in participating at all.

“What creates an insurable community is for the whole community to have buy-in,” said Deanna Fernweh, the program manager. “It's changing the mentality, because they're like, ‘Well, we've always done it this way.’” She said she’s cautiously optimistic that companies will come back — insurers have been reaching out to learn more about her work, but they’ve also pushed for full neighborhoods to meet the strictest fire standards.

The project underscores the scale of the challenge the next commissioner will face in reducing fire risk. The project only touches around 300 of the 1,200 eligible homes in the neighborhood, and the grant typically isn’t even enough to do full mitigation on each home. The funding came from the federal government after years of delay. The best possible result is to bring insurers back to just a few streets, a fraction of the risk in Lake County alone. For millions of homeowners who don’t have access to grant funding, resilience is still out of reach.

“A home is only as strong as the weakest link,” said Steve Hawks, a longtime California fire official who is now the director of wildfire at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, which develops standards for fire hardening. “If you leave a weak link on the table, a fire of [significant] magnitude can exploit any vulnerability.”

Hawks describes the challenge as “daunting,” and that may be an understatement. Retrofitting a home for fire can cost several times as much as building a new fire-resilient home, and the bill for hardening the millions of homes in California’s fire zones would run to the double-digit billions at least. This money has to come from somewhere, and Allen and Kim both acknowledged that their biggest challenge is to find out where.

This is the irony of the fact that both candidates are appealing to voters by talking about “affordability.” No matter which path one takes through the maze, one arrives at the same conclusion — to fix this crisis will take money, and much of that money will come from the people of California. As Allen says, “risk doesn't disappear, it gets allocated.” The “affordability” challenge in this case is not to help voters keep up with inflation but to pay down a massive debt of risky development that has been accumulating for decades. The challenge is to remake a society that was not designed to be remade.

“I think we’re still at the beginning,” said Holly Sacks, the director of underwriting for Mercury, a California-based insurance company that has committed to remain in the state and to help incentivize risk mitigation. The company is selling in burned places like Paradise and Altadena, but only for hardened homes, and Sacks says it’s one of the only companies doing so. “We are out there, and we don't hear about a lot of other carriers getting out there,” she said. “I think there's still a ways to go … to really make the market more stable.”

The scale of this work is enormous, but the stakes are even larger. When we purchase insurance, we purchase not only the privilege of owning a home or driving a car, but also the privilege of belonging to a community in which all support all. Insurance, as Kim likes to say, is a prerequisite for participating in the economy. A healthy insurance market is also an indication that society can still hold together, that there is no home so vulnerable to the ravages of global warming that the rest of the community can’t afford to protect it.

Of all the things that climate change may take from us, this guarantee might be the most dear.

Incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and challenger City Councilmember Nithya Raman went head-to-head in a tense, live televised debate Tuesday night.

With Election Day only three weeks away, the candidates are racing to make their case to voters on major mayoral priorities like homelessness, public safety and the 2028 Olympics.

Here are three takeaways from the hour-long NBC4 and Telemundo 52 debate in Universal City. Each candidate was given about a minute to answer a question, with another 30 seconds each for rebuttals and follow-ups.

What did the candidates say about homelessness?

Bass has repeatedly pointed to a drop in homelessness under her tenure — a trend that faltered this past year, according to the results of the annual homeless count. After two years of declines, homelessness jumped 3.4% in the city of Los Angeles.

During the debate, she acknowledged the recent increase, but pointed to several council districts where homelessness dropped, including Raman’s.

“ The main reason homelessness went down is because our efforts with Inside Safe,” Bass said, crediting the program for removing three large encampments from Raman’s district. Raman represents Council District 4, which stretches from parts of Silver Lake to the Hollywood Hills and Reseda.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass took shots at her challenger, at one point describing City Councilmember Nithya Raman as " contemptuous of her constituents."

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Courtesy NBC4 and Telemundo 52

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Inside Safe is Bass’ signature homelessness program that moves people from encampments into motels and interim housing. Raman has criticized the program, arguing it has wasted money and its approach had not changed since it launched nearly four years ago.

“ Under this mayor's leadership, we have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into an incredibly expensive program, Inside Safe, which has been unaccountable to the public, for which she has refused audits," she said. " And it looks exactly the same as it did on day one.”

Both candidates seemed to agree that there needs to be more transparency in the city’s homelessness system.

Bass said the city needs to be in complete control: “ No more joint working with the county.”

Raman said every homelessness dollar needs to be monitored and every service performance tracked to actually respond to Angelenos’ needs.

What did the candidates say about policing?

Raman confirmed during the debate that she wants to replace Jim McDonnell as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, saying he had lost the trust of Angelenos, especially in response to federal immigration raids.

Asked whether she would replace McDonnell before the 2028 Olympics, Raman didn’t give a timeline. She said it would depend on other factors and decision makers, such as the Police Commission and L.A. City Council.

“ I promise you, Angelenos, I promise you, there is no decision that I will take as your mayor that will put you in danger,” Raman said. “Everything will be done with care, and with the advice of all of the people that are involved in making sure that you are safe as these Olympics approach.”

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman criticized L.A. Mayor Karen Bass' signature homelessness program, Inside Safe, and her administration's response to major fires.

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Courtesy NBC4 and Telemundo 52

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Bass pressed Raman on the issue, saying the council member doesn’t have “any idea” what it takes to pick a police chief.

“ We are 640 days away from the largest sporting event to ever take place — a major national security event — and if you think that you're gonna find a police chief, you would send the department in disarray by doing that,” Bass said.

Both candidates weighed in on the LAPD’s use of Automated License Plate Readers, otherwise known as ALPRs.

Raman said she’s been “very skeptical” of these kinds of mass surveillance technologies and would want to see hard proof that the data would not be shared with ICE.

Bass said she thinks ALPR’s have a place in crime prevention, but she does not support a renewed contract with Flock, describing the company as “completely uncooperative.”

What did the candidates say about emergency response?

Bass has been heavily criticized for her administration’s response to last year’s Palisades Fire, and she apologized during the debate for not being in L.A. “when my city needed me.” Bass was in Ghana when the fires ignited as part of a Biden administration delegation for the inauguration of the country’s new president.

Bass said the city would be ready to respond to the next catastrophic wildfire, in part under new leadership from Fire Chief Jaime Moore.

“ As a matter of fact, we're preparing for what is a potential Red Flag day this Thursday,” Bass said. “He has already reached out to the state for additional resources. He is planning to pre-deploy in the Palisades and other high-risk fire areas.”

Raman honed in the Palisades Fire, as well as this summer’s Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, describing both as a “failure” of leadership from the mayor. Raman said she would have handled the Lineage fire differently.

“ I will make sure that our community is met with resources, evacuation support and the information they need in the languages that they need, which this community did not get during these fires,” she said.

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