Faith Leaders Asked to Support Federal Disaster-Relief Funding — Sign by October 7
Department of Angels and Extreme Weather Survivors are asking faith leaders across LA to add their names to a letter urging Congress to include federal disaster-relief funding for communities still recovering from the Eaton and Palisades fires. The letter calls on federal leaders to provide the long-term resources needed to help survivors rebuild homes, restore communities, and address recovery needs that remain nearly two years after the fires. Faith leaders who would like to participate are asked to sign by October 7.
Action: Review and sign or share the faith-leader letter.
Insurer-Performance Survey — Smoke Damage & Renters Remain Underrepresented
Policyholders—especially renters and homeowners of standing homes with smoke damage—urgently need to complete the EFSN/UCLA LA Fire Survivor Insurance Survey at FireSurvey.org. These groups remain underrepresented, limiting the data available to document delays, denials, underpayments, remediation disputes, and other claim-handling problems. That data can have a real impact. LA County is currently suing State Farm over its handling of wildfire claims and investigating Farmers Insurance for potential unfair business practices. Stronger survivor data can help identify similar patterns at other insurers and provide evidence for additional County enforcement actions or lawsuits where warranted.
Action: Complete the survey at FireSurvey.org.
UL Report Finds Eaton Fire Failures, Bolsters Case for Fire-Safe Insurance Reform
UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute released an independent analysis of the January 2025 Southern CA fires identifying 175 findings and 266 recommendations. For the Eaton Fire, the report found major breakdowns in situational awareness, field-to-command information, evacuation, interagency communications, and responder accountability, while also emphasizing that wildfire losses are increasingly shaped at the neighborhood and community scale. That finding is directly relevant to SB 1076, Senator Pérez’s Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act, sponsored by Consumer Watchdog and EFSN, which sought to require insurers to offer or renew coverage for properties meeting wildfire-safety standards and was later narrowed to a pilot in Altadena focused on communities undertaking broader mitigation. The Senate Insurance Committee did not advance the bill on April 22, when it received three votes in favor, two against, and two members not voting—one vote short of passage. Insurers opposed it largely on underwriting, capital, reinsurance, geographic concentration, and solvency grounds.
The UL report strengthens the argument that SB 1076 should have advanced, particularly as Altadena is being rebuilt on a community-wide scale. Thousands of homes are being reconstructed at roughly the same time, creating a rare opportunity to build not just safer individual homes, but a substantially more fire-resilient neighborhood. If California expects survivors to invest heavily in home hardening and stronger construction standards, there should also be a viable path to insurance for those who meet those standards. The amended SB 1076 would have created a pilot to test whether coordinated community-level mitigation can reduce wildfire risk and support insurability—an approach that closely aligns with UL’s conclusion that modern WUI fire resilience must be addressed at the community level, not one property at a time.
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