This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: California has had relatively few major wildfires since the January 2025 Los Angeles fires, but unmet priorities could spell disaster at any time. A new report by Stanford's Climate and Energy Policy Program (CEPP) provides an overview of data and context to help policymakers understand the scope of wildfire's impacts—from destroyed homes to higher electric bills—and make informed decisions about prevention and preparation measures, such as prescribed burns and home hardening.
Released Nov. 4, the system-level report also includes an assessment of wildfire prevention and response spending. It comes as the federal government reorganizes its wildland fire workforce and California awaits the inauguration of a new governor. "The challenge with all natural disaster preparedness is that memories of catastrophes, and with them, the willingness to do things to prevent them, fade quickly," the report's authors write.
Below, CEPP Director Michael Wara and CEPP Research Director Michael Mastrandrea discuss emerging trends, policy insights and the urgency for action highlighted by the report they co-authored with other CEPP researchers. Although the total number of acres burned statewide in 2025 dropped by more than half from the previous year, the number of structures destroyed by wildfire increased tenfold. That's largely because the Los Angeles fires ripped through densely populated areas.
"When it feels like a quiet year, it can be easy to think, oh, the pressure's off, right?" Wara said. "But we have enough experience here in California to realize that that's not the case unless you have truly changed the risks." Meanwhile, he said, state policies governing who pays the costs of wildfire have led to electric utilities spending huge sums to reduce the chance their infrastructure sparks fires. This amount dwarfs what is spent on landscape resilience and home hardening statewide.
Roughly one in four structures in California sits in or on the edge of a fire hazard zone, and millions of homes need upgrades. The report highlights that "smart" changes, such as home hardening, community preparation and landscape fuels management, could turn a "category 5" wildfire into a "category 2" that well-trained fire services can better manage. Wildfire-related costs passed on from utilities to ratepayers grew from $488 million in 2019 to nearly $9 billion in 2024.
From 2020 to 2026, average monthly residential electric bills rose 66% for Pacific Gas and Electric customers, 88% for Southern California Edison customers and 46% for San Diego Gas & Electric customers, compared with 26% consumer price inflation. In large part because of wildfire risk, homeowners insurance premiums rose 84% over the same period (45% after inflation), and the FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, went from covering 2% of single-family homes to about 5%, covering over $750 billion in property value. "The only way, in our minds, that you actually reduce the costs or the pressures on bills and on insurance premiums is to have fewer losses in the future," Mastrandrea said.
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