Dry Santa Ana winds have fueled devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area. The excessive damage began Tuesday and has continued into Thursday, putting at least 130,000 residents under evacuation orders as of Thursday morning.

Five major fires have caused over 400,000 power outages, with the Pacific Palisades fire just west of Los Angeles being the most destructive in the city’s history as an estimated 1,000 structures were destroyed.

Florida State University Professor Kevin Speer is the director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute. He is an expert in climate change, from global ocean circulation to the dynamics of hydrothermal plumes.

According to Speer, there are four main factors contributing to the Los Angeles wildfires:

Fuels: California has always had a seasonal cycle that produces drier conditions in the grassy chaparral, which fuels conditions associated with fire risk. These have become more intense in many locations over the years with shifts in temperature and rain patterns.

Land use and zoning: It is more expensive to build or renovate houses and buildings to make them ember-proof and eliminate the most flammable vegetation. But law and zoning regulations need to be changed to drive the housing market in this direction and to provide incentives for homeowners, banks and insurance companies to incorporate the real risks into property value.

Ignitions: Fires get ignited for all sorts of natural and human-caused reasons. Speer says Americans need to move away from seeking blame to blaming ourselves for not developing responsibly.

Meteorology: The situation in Los Angeles is linked to atmospheric conditions that drive strong wind flow over the tops of the coastal mountain range. These conditions were predicted, and some fires that could have grown were extinguished. But it was almost inevitable that some get out of control when winds are higher than 30 mph and more variable in speed and direction. This situation is not the usual downslope and downcanyon Santa Ana winds but involves air flow in mountain waves that amplify the wind speed. This is atmospheric fluid dynamics at work.

Media requesting interviews about the broad impact of the current wildfires in Los Angeles can reach Professor Speer via email at kspeer@fsu.edu.

AccuWeather reported that the damage from the Los Angeles wildfires is expected to reach about $57 billion.

Charles Nyce is the Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management & Insurance at FSU. He is an expert in catastrophic risk financing and has authored numerous articles on risk management and insurance topics, including title insurance, IPOs, enterprise risk management, predictive analytics and natural hazards.

Nyce compares the insurance impact of the Los Angeles wildfires to the situations that have unfolded in recent years with the hurricanes in Florida.

“Wildfires are disasters, just like floods and hurricanes,” Nyce said. “They can occur naturally and some things that we do as humans do have an impact on their frequency and severity. From an insurance perspective, like windstorms, wildfires are covered by the homeowner’s insurance policy. States with significant wildfire exposure are going to see rising insurance costs and availability concerns like we have seen in Florida.”

Media requesting interviews about insurance impacts of the current wildfires in Los Angeles can reach Professor Nyce via email at cnyce@business.fsu.edu.

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In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, property damage could reach up to $26 billion, according to Moody’s Analytics.

Impacted by hurricanes or not, it is always important for homeowners to understand their insurance policies to make filing potential claims easier.

Helene was the first major hurricane of the 2024 season to make landfall in the United States. The storm impacted the Big Bend area and caused widespread damage in Georgia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and Virginia.

FSU Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance Charles Nyce is an expert in catastrophic risk financing. He has authored several articles on a variety of risk management and insurance topics. Nyce joined the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center in 2009 and previously served as its associate director.

Nyce is available to speak to reporters on the insurance implications of hurricanes and can be contacted at cnyce@business.fsu.edu.

Charles Nyce, Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance
cnyce@business.fsu.edu

 “One piece of advice is trying to understand what insurance they had and what is covered. For many homeowners, they do not understand that homeowners’ insurance does not cover flood. For many properties in Florida, damage from Hurricane Helene was generated by flood (storm surge or rising river/stream waters). Flood insurance is a separate insurance policy sold by the National Flood Insurance Program and some private insurers. Make sure homeowners talk to their insurance agents to make sure they are pursuing coverage under the proper insurance policies.

 “Also, homeowners should work quickly to ensure they undertake steps to prevent future damage. There is the possibility of another storm forming in the Gulf of Mexico as we speak. If damage has been sustained, homeowners should work to ensure that they are prepared for another possible storm.”

About the Dr. William T. Hold/The Alliance’s Program in Risk Management and Insurance
The department’s Dr. William T. Hold/The Alliance’s Program in Risk Management and Insurance recently maintained its No. 4 spot on U.S. News & World Report’s top public and private RMI programs. It is one of the largest programs in the nation, with close interaction among students, faculty members, alumni and the business community continuing to be one of its hallmarks. The department is housed in FSU’s College of Business.

The Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate & Legal Studies Department works with the FSU Real Estate Center Executive Board and the Risk Management and Insurance Executive Council to keep its curriculum relevant, provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and offer opportunities for students to network with industry executives.

For more information on the RMI program, visit business.fsu.edu/departments/rmirels

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