Alongside this crisis, Californians are dealing with a related crisis closer to home: many are finding it harder and harder to obtain homeowner’s insurance. In recent years, Allstate has stopped taking on new customers and increased rates for existing ones. Liberty Mutual has raised rates and has also not renewed the policies of 17,000 long-term customers since last fall.
” Forest management in California—including a misplaced focus on fire suppression for more than a century—has also been responsible for the negative trend in wildfire activity, as it’s allowed burnable materials to build up in the state’s wild landscapes. Some degree of burning is actually good for California’s wild areas, as it keeps levels of flammable materials down. Californians have also been moving to riskier, more fire-prone areas, in what is known as the wildland–urban interface, or WUI.