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Here’s what we know so far about the Senate, the House, and key local races.
American voters have chosen Donald Trump as their next president — again. The decision will have monumental consequences for the renewables transition, energy prices, and environmental issues. But it was not the only race of this election cycle.
Heatmap has been keeping tabs on 36 of the most important climate elections, from seats in the House and Senate down to local ballot measures and attorneys general. Though this is far from an exhaustive list of races that will touch the climate this year, we hope it’ll help you piece together how and where climate-related issues are resonating with voters around the country.
A few notes on how this list is organized:
Some key races remain undecided as of Thursday morning. While Republicans took control of the Senate, the House is still up for grabs.
Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District
Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans* vs. Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal
Status: 🔴Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans wins
Kiggans, the vice chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus and a Trump ally, won her reelection in a tight race. She beat Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal in a swingy district with a diverse electorate of young voters, a robust LGBTQ community, and many military families. Kiggans backed the Default on America Act to repeal clean energy tax credits and has flip-flopped on her support of offshore wind (Kiggans says she supports it, despite voting to slash IRA incentives for the project) while her opponent had called climate change a crisis in need of “urgent action” and bipartisan solutions.
Governor
Republican Mark Robinson vs. Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein
Status: 🔵 Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein wins
North Carolina Attorney General Stein has won the election for governor. The state suffered one of the costliest storms in U.S. history earlier this year due to the flooding from Hurricane Helene, which drew attention to the divide between the two candidates who’d been running for the state’s highest office. Republican Mark Robinson called climate change “junk science” and said he’d attempt to block history and science from being taught in the first through fifth grades. He’d also said not pursuing the development of fossil fuels is an affront to God, and that he’d attempt to keep the “climate change cabal” in “chains.” By contrast, Stein had proposed a path to reach carbon neutrality in the state by 2050 and has a history of taking on polluters and Big Oil price gougers.
Commissioner of Insurance
Republican Mike Causey* vs. Democrat Natasha Marcus
Status: 🔴 Republican Mike Causey wins
Incumbent Republican Insurance Commissioner Causey has successfully fended off a challenge from the Climate Cabinet- backed state Senator Marcus, who took on Causey on the grounds that he’d approved too many rate increases and was too cozy with the companies he was in charge of regulating. Marcus had pushed for greater investment in home hardening and outraised Causey nearly twice over. While insurance commissioner isn’t the sexiest race, the election drew outsized attention in part because of Nationwide’s decision not to renew thousands of homeowner policies in eastern North Carolina in 2023 due to climate change, and the devastating flooding earlier this year from Hurricane Helene.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Rep. Sherrod Brown* vs. Republican Bernie Moreno
Status: 🔴Republican Bernie Moreno wins
MAGA Republican Bernie Moreno has flipped the seat of three-term Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Combined with Republican Jim Justice winning outgoing Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s seat earlier in the night, Brown’s loss makes it unlikely that Democrats retain control of the Senate. Climate and energy had not played a significant role in the race between Brown and Moreno, though Brown, who once voiced support for a Green New Deal, had broken in recent months with his Democratic colleagues on the IRA’s tax credit for EVs (which he says does not do enough to crack down on imported materials from China and Indonesia), backed overturning the Environmental Protection Agency’s new power plant regulations and tailpipe rules (which are “unrealistic” and a strain on the grid, he said), and joined Manchin in criticizing the Biden administration’s clean hydrogen tax credit. Moreno has stressed that “we need natural gas, we need oil” rather than “this move toward windmills, solar panels.”
Ohio’s 9th Congressional District
Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptur* vs. Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin
Status: Pending
The race in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, which includes Toledo and the shores of Lake Erie, is about many things, but it’s also about algae. Kaptur sits on the House Appropriations Committee, where she has supported clean energy-related spending, and she’s also the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development appropriations subcommittee, where she fought for a $1.5 million federal project to combat warming-induced algal blooms in the Great Lakes. Her opponent, Merrin, voted against that bill as a state representative and for laws that would label methane as green energy. She claimed Kaptur and other Democrats’ clean energy pursuits threaten affordability and reliability.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Sen. Bob Casey, Jr.* vs. Republican David McCormick
Status: 🔴Republican David McCormick wins
McCormick flipped the Pennsylvania Senate seat for Republicans in one of the most energy- and climate-centric races of the year. During the campaign, McCormick had painted the incumbent, Casey, as an enemy of fracking by tying him to Kamala Harris’ prior opposition to the industry. Casey, however, has always supported what he calls “responsible fracking,” including the proposed hydrogen hubs in the state (one of which would use fracked gas). McCormick, whose wife sits on the board of Exxon, has said renewable energy is making the U.S. more reliant on materials from China and that we “need to get back to the energy policies under President Trump,” including by repealing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and gutting the Inflation Reduction Act.
Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District
Democrat Rep. Susan Wild* vs. Republican state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie
Status: 🔴Republican state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie wins
Wild conceded her race Wednesday morning to Mackenzie, a Republican lawmaker who had slammed her repeatedly for voting for the “failed” IRA while on the campaign trail. As a state representative, Mackenzie had also voted against environmental and clean energy measures, including rooftop solar panels for schools. In her concession speech, Wild stressed the importance of the continued fight for a “clean and safe planet.”
Attorney General
Democrat Eugene DePasquale vs. Republican Dave Sunday
Status: 🔴Republican Dave Sunday wins
Sunday had not spoken about climate-related issues during the campaign and didn’t respond to a request for comment on the matter from The Philadelphia Citizen. However the next attorney general of Pennsylvania has an opportunity to pursue climate liability litigation during their term, with Bucks County suing the fossil fuel industry for misleading the public about the dangers of burning oil and gas, E&E News reports. DePasquale, who lost the race, had said he considers environmental justice a top priority.
Referred Law 21
Opportunity: To take a stance on carbon pipelines
Voters in South Dakota rejected a bill passed by their state legislature earlier this year that imposed a number of regulations on potential CO2 pipelines, including a modest $1-per-foot surcharge and requirements about minimum depth. Opponents wary of the carbon capture technology had forced the ballot measure on the law, which they claimed was a giveaway to pipeline companies since it gave the state’s Public Utilities Commissioners the ability to override local ordinances and zoning laws meant to block the pipeline. The rejection of Referred Law 21 will have major implications for the $8 billion Summit Carbon Solutions Pipeline, which would collect CO2 from regional ethanol plants and deliver it to an injection well in North Dakota as a means of dealing with planet-warming emissions. The uncertainty around whether or not Referred Law 21 would pass is part of why the project is one of Heatmap’s most at-risk energy transition proposals.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego vs. Republican Kari Lake
Status: Pending
Democrats will need a win in the Grand Canyon State if they have any chance of holding the Senate. While the pitch to undecided voters in Arizona has centered on reproductive and LGBTQ rights, Gallego helped to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in the House and has posited himself as a defender of Arizona’s public lands, water, and energy transition. Lake, a close ally of Trump’s, has boosted falsehoods about wind turbines killing an outsized number of birds and whales, and blamed the state’s heat deaths on drug overdoses. She has called climate change “fake science” and told voters that she’s “not going to be afraid of the weather.”
Arizona’s 1st Congressional District
Republican Rep. David Schweikert* vs. Democrat Amish Shah
Status: Pending
Arizona’s 1st congressional district, covering northeastern Phoenix and Scottsdale, was considered “ reliably Republican” for Schweikert’s first seven terms, but he’s facing a formidable challenge from Shah, a former ER doctor, in the recently redrawn district. Schweikert has taken a more moderate position on the energy transition than other Republicans in the state, arguing that “the government must stop picking winners and losers in the industry” but “we also should continue to expand into renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear, and geothermal.” Shah, who green groups like the Sierra Club endorse, has pushed for a “healthier Arizona” by standing up to polluters and protecting Arizona’s public lands. This race is one of several that could decide control of the U.S. House.
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani* vs. Democrat Kirsten Engel
Status: Pending
Another close race that could decide control of the House is in the Tucson suburbs. Ciscomani is a Trump-endorsed moderate who voted against the IRA but has been friendlier on issues like residential solar projects. Engel’s team has positioned itself as better on water issues than Ciscomani and willing to stand up to foreign mining companies interested in the state’s copper resources.
The Arizona Corporation Commission
Opportunity: Flip three seats from Republicans
Status: Pending
The commission regulates utilities in the state, and in recent years it has actively dismantled clean energy policy and standards with particular aggression toward community solar. Arizona voters have an opportunity to elect representatives who will vote on rules for virtual power plants and can block the repeal of the state’s renewable energy and efficiency standards. There are three Democrats, two Green Party candidates, and three Republicans running for three of the commission’s five total seats.
Colorado’s 8th Congressional District
Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo* vs. Republican Gabe Evans
Status: Pending
Though the race in Colorado’s 8th congressional district has focused on the fentanyl and border crises, it encompasses the northern suburbs of Denver, including parts of the oil-and-gas-rich Front Range, where the fossil fuel industry has degraded local air quality for decades. Caraveo’s challenger Evans has dismissed “climate alarmism” and has a 0% score from Conservation Colorado for his “no” votes on everything from regulating toxic “forever chemicals” to transportation infrastructure development to holding gas companies accountable for their environmental impacts. Caraveo, a former pediatrician, has cited air pollution's impact on her patients as one of her motivations for running for office.
Iowa’s 1st Congressional District
Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks* vs. Democrat Christina Bohannan
Status: Pending
Miller-Meeks, who represents the southeasternmost part of the state, also chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus and is a more moderate “ all of the above” energy supporter. Democrats, however, see the race as an opportunity to flip a seat in the House via Bohannan and have out-raised the Republican renewable energy advocate by a 2-to-1 margin, E&E News reports. Bohannan has attacked Miller-Meeks for slow-walking action on addressing climate change through her soft hand with the oil and gas industry.
Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District
Republican Rep. Zach Nunn* vs. Democrat Lanon Baccam
Status: 🔴Republican Rep. Zach Nunn wins
Democrats in Iowa were hoping for another potential pick-up in the swingy 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Des Moines and the Missouri border. Nunn made tax cuts a central component of his re-election bid, and he also voted to repeal tax credits for clean energy three times and bashed the IRA as “telling Iowans you should spend less, you should tighten your belt, but we're gonna go ahead and print off more money and spend more your tax dollars on projects.”
The Outer Continental Shelf Revenues for Coastal Protection and Restoration Fund Amendment
Opportunity: Requiring that federal reserves received by the state for alternative and renewable energy production off its coast go toward protecting the state’s oceanfronts
Status: 🟢 Passed
Louisiana voters opted to require that federal reserve revenue raised from renewable energy production in federal waters off its coast go into a fund that supports coastal restoration projects, including the construction of levees and protection of barrier islands. (Federal revenues received by oil and gas in the state already support this fund.) The Coastal Protection and Restoration Fund has been around since Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005, but most of its money came from damages paid after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and those funds will be exhausted by the end of 2031. Proponents argued the amendment is necessary to protect Louisiana’s coasts from worsening storms and rising sea levels, though opponents said it’s more important to keep the funds flexible for any legislative priorities that may arise.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin vs. Republican Mike Rogers
Status: 🔵Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin wins
Despite Democrats’ poor performance in many of Tuesday night’s Senate races, Rep. Elissa Slotkin managed to hold a seat for the party by winning the race to replace outgoing Senator Debbie Stabenow. Her campaign against Republican Mike Rogers had become a referendum on the state’s electric vehicle manufacturing industry, with Rogers alleging Slotkin and other Democrats support a (nonexistent) “EV mandate” that destroys jobs (it doesn’t). The arguments had put Slotkin on her back foot, however: She ran ads telling voters she doesn’t own an electric car.
Michigan’s 8th Congressional District
Republican Paul Junge vs. Democrat state Sen.Kristen McDonald Rivet
Status: 🔵Democrat state Sen.Kristen McDonald Rivet wins
Green groups like the LCV Victory Fund and Climate Power poured money and volunteer hours into picking up Michigan’s 8th Congressional District for Democrats, and on Tuesday their work paid off. McDonald Rivet has an impressive climate record, which includes helping to pass Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s 100% renewable energy bill while serving as a state senator. She has also fought for flood reduction infrastructure and lead pipe replacement funding in a district that includes Flint. Meanwhile, Junge dismissed solar and wind energy as not being “dependable,” talked up “clean coal” and expanding oil and gas leasing on public lands, and advocated for resuming construction on the Keystone Pipeline and maintaining the controversial Line 5 crude oil pipeline.
Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District
Republican Rep. Don Bacon* vs. Democrat state Sen. Tony Vargas
Status: Pending
State Senator Tony Vargas is challenging the incumbent legislator in a district that includes Nebraska’s “blue dot” of Omaha. Though the race has centered mainly on issues like abortion, tax cuts, and immigration, Vargas is a former Earth sciences teacher who openly talks about combatting climate change and investing in clean energy (he even cosponsored a bill arguing the state Legislature has a “moral obligation” to do something about the issue). While in office, Bacon voted to repeal tax credits for wind and solar energy, and he’s chalked up extreme weather as having “cyclical impacts.”
New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District
Democrat Rep. Gabe Vasquez* vs. Republican Yvette Herrell
Status: 🔵 Democrat Rep. Gabe Vasquez wins
Democrat Rep. Vasquez managed to fend off a challenge from Republican Herrell, whose seat he flipped in the super swingy 2nd congressional district of New Mexico two years ago. The district includes a large swath of the oil-rich Permian Basin, and Vasquez had walked the line between promoting wind and solar manufacturing as part of the IRA while also “looking out for those fossil fuel communities.” Herrell had said that renewable subsidies create “unfair” competition for oil and gas businesses, and she has a 0% lifetime score from LCV for such positions as voting in favor of rolling back access to public land.
New York’s 4th Congressional District
Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito* vs. Democrat Laura Gillen
Status: 🔵Democrat Laura Gillen wins
Gillen unseated D’Esposito in New York’s 4th Congressional District, which represents the southern part of Nassau County and is the second-wealthiest in the state. A Trump ally, D’Esposito had opposed local offshore wind projects as being “landscape-altering” and had helped to expand offshore drilling. Gillen previously lost to D’Esposito in 2022, but this time, she had played up her experience helping Hempstead recover from Hurricane Sandy and pushed for the protection of the district’s coastlines.
New York’s 17th Congressional District
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler* vs. Democrat Mondaire Jones
Status: 🔴Rep. Mike Lawler wins
Elon Musk’s PAC dumped money into the race to help Lawler win New York’s 17th Congressional District. Located just north of the liberal bastion of New York City, New York’s 17th Congressional District was safely controlled by Democrats until 2020’s infamous redistricting. Though the map was again redrawn for the 2024 election, NY-17 went virtually untouched in a “win” for Lawler. Besides being a critical race for control of the House, NY-17 also pitted Lawler, a co-sponsor of the Energy Choice Act aiming to protect natural gas, against Jones, who represented a former iteration of the district and supported congestion pricing (except for Lower Hudson Valley residents, of course) and the build-out of renewables. The candidates diverge on their opinion of the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which Lawler called “foolish;” Jones, somewhat out of step with his party, opposes nuclear power.
Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District
Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden* vs. Democrat Rebecca Cooke
Status: 🔴Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden wins
Republican incumbent Derrick Van Orden won his reelection campaign for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District — which covers the exurbs of the Twin Cities and much of the southwestern part of the state — after making gas and energy prices a staple of his campaign. In addition to promoting increased domestic energy production, Van Orden is a member of the Congressional Biofuels Caucus and has pushed for renewable ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel, while at the same time stressing that tax dollars should not go toward “subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles.” He was also present in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 to attend the Stop the Steal rally that turned into an assault on the U.S. Capitol. His opponent, Cooke, had said she’d prioritize investment in clean energy infrastructure and new high-speed rail in Wisconsin and addressing PFAS in water.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Sen. Jon Tester* vs. Republican Tim Sheehy
Status: 🔴Republican Tim Sheehy wins
The LCV Victory Fund named Sheehy as one of its “dirty dozen” priority targets due to his advocacy for privatizing public lands and calling climate change the belief of a leftist cult. Tester, meanwhile, has been described as a “hero” of green groups due to his support of renewable tax credits and stated dreams of owning an electric tractor. Though it had already become apparent that Democrats would lose control of the Senate by the time the race was called, Tester’s defeat is nevertheless a stinging blow to climate advocates who hoped to maintain an advantage there.
Attorney General
Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen* vs. Democrat Ben Alke
Status: 🔴Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen wins
Knudsen leads the state’s case against the 16 young plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, who are suing lawmakers for allegedly violating their right to a “clean and healthful environment” as enshrined in the state’s constitution. Alke, the Democratic challenger, had the support of Montana Conservation Voters for his prior work in environmental law, including attempts to make public lands less accessible. Though a state panel recently recommended that he be suspended from practicing law for 90 days due to ethics violations, E&E News reported, in the end he carried the race by nearly 20 points.
The Montana Public Service Commission
Opportunity: Electing Independent Elena Evans to the commission
Status: 🟡 Failed
The three open seats on Montana’s PSC remained in Republican control, with incumbent Republican Jennifer Fielder holding out against her challenger, Elena Evans, a geologist and political Independent, who came in fourth. Their race had focused on energy affordability, especially after the Republican commission okayed a 28% rate increase for Northwestern Energy, the biggest utility in the state, last year. Evans had said she’d look closer at building climate resiliency into the state’s grid, while Fielder won on the message that it isn’t her place to weigh in on climate as a utility regulator.
U.S. Senate
Democrat Rep. Jacky Rosen vs. Republican Sam Brown
Status: Pending
Nevada’s junior senator, Jacky Rosen, is a clean energy enthusiast who helped pass the IRA and attempted to expand solar and geothermal energy within the Silver State. Brown has said he would not have supported the IRA and stood disagrees within the way of solar development in the state as a TK IN WHAT ROLE DID HE DO THIS?, while calling for expanding investment in fossil fuels. Brown also said he wants to cut the Department of Energy and any “environmental departments and agencies.”
Portland City Council
Opportunity: Portland voters are electing an entirely new city council and have the chance to choose representatives who will support the Portland Clean Energy Fund
Status: Pending
Portland has a new voting system for all new city council districts, meaning voters in Oregon’s biggest city will elect an entirely new set of representatives this fall. Lead Locally is backing five candidates in the race, including the executive director of an environmental justice group (Candace Avalos) and an energy economist for Bonneville Power Administration (Mitch Green). The next city council will make decisions about the fate of the Portland Clean Energy Fund, which allocates money for clean energy projects, and will weigh whether or not to transition away from fossil fuel infrastructure — namely, the Zenith Energy crude oil shipment facility and rail line in northwest Portland, which is an earthquake risk and contributes to the area’s poor air quality.
At stake is the continued progress of the Portland Clean Energy Fund, which allocates money for clean energy projects, as well as the potential closure of the Zenith Energy crude oil shipment facility in northwest Portland.
Measure 6-219 (Coos County) and Measure 8-116 (Curry County)
Opportunity: To directly express community opposition to offshore wind
Status: 🟡 Passed
Voters in two counties on the southern Oregon Coast expressed overwhelming opposition to offshore wind development in their region. The November ballots in Coos and Curry counties included a non-binding question intended to take the community’s temperature on potential offshore wind projects. More than 60% of Coos County voters registered their feelings against the development of offshore wind projects, while nearly 80% of Curry County voters objected specifically to floating offshore wind.
Proposition 4
Opportunity: Authorizes $10 billion in bonds for water quality, coastal resilience projects, wildfire prevention, and climate-risk protections
Californians have approved a proposition that will issue $10 billion in bonds, which will largely go toward infrastructure projects aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change, with at least 40% of the funds earmarked for disadvantaged communities. The bill had been backed by organizations like CALFIRE and the National Wildlife Federation and was opposed by Republicans for being unfocused and adding to the state deficit.
Measure GG (Berkeley)
Opportunity: Adopting a tax on natural gas use in most buildings over 15,000 square feet
Status: 🟡 Failed
Over two-thirds of voters in Berkeley rejected a ballot measure backed by climate and labor groups that would have authorized a tax of $2.9647 per therm of natural gas in large buildings, with the funds going toward decarbonization programs. The ballot measure had been an attempt to functionally reinstate the city’s first-in-the-nation prohibition against gas hookups in new buildings, which a federal appeals court struck down last spring. Supporters of Measure GG had raised almost $72,000 by the end of September, while the no campaign — backed by real estate groups that said the tax was prohibitively expensive for small businesses, nonprofits, schools, and grocery stores — had raised $131,000 at the end of September.
Initiative 2117
Opportunity: To vote against repealing the state’s cap and invest program
Status: 🟡 Failed
The Republican-backed effort to repeal Washington state’s new cap and invest program has failed. Both the “no” and “yes” campaigns poured money into their respective sides, making the issue the most expensive ballot measure campaign of this election cycle. If I-2117 had passed, it would have left a gaping hole in the state’s revenue for transit projects, decarbonization initiatives, and clean air and water programs.
Initiative 2066
Opportunity: To support Washington’s transition away from natural gas
Status: Pending
Washingtonians will also vote on I-2066, which would prevent the state from incentivizing a transition from natural gas. The initiative would also jeopardize opportunities to promote thermal energy networks as a gas alternative and bar cities and towns, as well as Washington’s energy code, from “prohibiting, penalizing, or discouraging” gas appliances in buildings, imperiling programs like Seattle’s 2050 net-zero emissions target.
U.S. House Alaska At-Large District
Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola* vs. Republican Nick Begich III
Status: Pending
Peltola has played nice with the fossil fuel industry — defending the Biden administration’s reversal on the Willow Project and supporting the construction of a trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline — but she also boasts an 88% score from the League of Conservation Voters due to her otherwise environmentally friendly voting record, has advocated for more tribal involvement in the environmental review process, and she sits on the influential House Natural Resource Committee. Begich has pitched himself to voters as the better candidate for Alaska’s oil and gas industry, which he claims is besieged by Democrats like Peltola. This race is one of several that could decide control of the U.S. House.
Question 1 (Honolulu)
Opportunity: Would designate 0.5% of property taxes to a Climate Resiliency Fund
Status: 🟢 Passed
Honolulu residents were asked whether they want to create a Climate Resiliency Fund with money raised by half a percent of the city’s property taxes. Advocates argued that the waterfront city needs to prioritize climate the same way it prioritizes affordable housing and the environment, both of which also have funds that receive a half percent of property taxes. Opponents said the creation of an exclusive climate fund will make the revenue less flexible in the case of an unforeseen crisis like rising homelessness or COVID-19, while others worried any shortfalls in the city budget caused by the creation of the fund will result in a rise in property taxes. Honolulu residents approved the measure by a wide margin, with 58% voting in favor, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct site of the injection well for the Summit carbon pipeline.
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Recovering from the Los Angeles wildfires will be expensive. Really expensive. Insurance analysts and banks have already produced a wide range of estimates of both what insurance companies will pay out and overall economic loss. AccuWeatherhas put out an eye-catching preliminary figure of $52 billion to $57 billion for economic losses, with the service’s chief meteorologist saying that the fires have the potential to “become the worst wildfire in modern California history based on the number of structures burned and economic loss.” On Thursday, J.P. Morgan doubled its previous estimate for insured losses to $20 billion, with an economic loss figure of $50 billion — about the gross domestic product of the country of Jordan.
The startlingly high loss figures from a fire that has only lasted a few days and is (relatively) limited in scope show just how distinctly devastating an urban fire can be. Enormous wildfires thatcover millions of acres like the 2023 Canadian wildfires can spew ash and particulate matter all over the globe and burn for months, darkening skies and clogging airways in other countries. And smaller — and far deadlier fires — than those still do not produce the same financial roll.
It’s in coastal Southern California where you find large population centers areas known by all to be at extreme risk of fire. And so a fire there can destroy a whole neighborhood in a few hours and put the state’s insurance system into jeopardy.
One reason why the projected economic impacts of the fires are so high is that the structures that have burned and the land those structures sit on are very valuable. Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Santa Monica contain some of the most sought-after real estate on planet earth, with typical home prices over $2 million. Pacific Palisades itself has median home values of around $3 million, according to JPMorgan Chase.
The AccuWeather estimates put the economic damage for the Los Angeles fires at several times previous large, urban fires — the Maui wildfire in 2023 was estimated to cause around $14 billion of economic loss, for example — while the figure would be about a third or a quarter of a large hurricane, which tend to strike areas with millions of people in them across several states.
“The fires have not been contained thus far and continue to spread, implying that estimates of potential economic and insured losses are likely to increase,” the JPMorgan analysts wrote Thursday.
That level of losses would make the fires costlier in economic terms than the 2018 Butte County Camp Fire, whose insured losses of $10 billion made it California’s costliest at the time. That fire was far larger than the Los Angeles fires, spreading over 150,000 acres compared to just over 17,000 acres for the Palisades Fire and over 10,000 acres for the Eaton Fire. It also led to more than 80 deaths in the town of Paradise.
So far, around 2,000 homes have been destroyed,according to the Los Angeles Times,a fraction of the more than 19,000 structures affected by the Camp Fire. The difference in estimated losses comes from the fact that homes in Pacific Palisades weigh in at more than six times those in rural Butte, according to JPMorgan.
While insured losses get the lion’s share of attention when it comes to the cost impacts of a natural disaster, the potential damages go far beyond the balance sheet of insurers.
For one, it’s likely that many affected homeowners did not even carry insurance, either because their insurers failed to renew their existing policies or the homeowners simply chose to go without due to the high cost of what insurance they could find. “A larger than usual portion of the losses caused by the wildfires will be uninsured,” according to Morningstar DBRS, which estimated total insured losses at more than $8 billion. Many homeowners carry insurance from California’s backup FAIR Plan, which may itself come under financial pressure, potentially leading to assessments from the state’s policyholders to bolster its ability to pay claims.
AccuWeather arrived at its economic impact figure by looking not just at losses from property damage but also wages that go unearned due to economic activity slowing down or halting in affected areas, infrastructure that needs to be repaired, supply chain issues, and transportation snarls. Even when homes and businesses aren’t destroyed, people may be unable to work due to evacuations; businesses may close due to the dispersal of their customers or inability of their suppliers to make deliveries. Smoke inhalation can lead to short-, medium-, and long-term health impacts that take a dent out of overall economic activity.
The high level of insured losses, meanwhile, could mean that insurers’ will see less surplus and could have to pay more for reinsurance, Nancy Watkins, an actuary and wildfire expert at Milliman, told me in an email. This may mean that they would have to shed yet more policies “in order to avoid deterioration in their financial strength ratings,” just as California has been trying to lure insurers back with reforms to its dysfunctional insurance market.
The economic costs of the fire will likely be felt for years if not decades. While it would take an act of God far stronger than a fire to keep people from building homes on the slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains or off the Pacific Coast, the city that rebuilds may be smaller, more heavily fortified, and more expensive than the one that existed at the end of last year. And that’s just before the next big fire.
Suburban streets, exploding pipes, and those Santa Ana winds, for starters.
A fire needs three things to burn: heat, fuel, and oxygen. The first is important: At some point this week, for a reason we have yet to discover and may never will, a piece of flammable material in Los Angeles County got hot enough to ignite. The last is essential: The resulting fires, which have now burned nearly 29,000 acres, are fanned by exceptionally powerful and dry Santa Ana winds.
But in the critical days ahead, it is that central ingredient that will preoccupy fire managers, emergency responders, and the public, who are watching their homes — wood-framed containers full of memories, primary documents, material wealth, sentimental heirlooms — transformed into raw fuel. “Grass is one fuel model; timber is another fuel model; brushes are another — there are dozens of fuel models,” Bobbie Scopa, a veteran firefighter and author of the memoir Both Sides of the Fire Line, told me. “But when a fire goes from the wildland into the urban interface, you’re now burning houses.”
This jump from chaparral shrubland into neighborhoods has frustrated firefighters’ efforts to gain an upper hand over the L.A. County fires. In the remote wilderness, firefighters can cut fire lines with axes, pulaskis, and shovels to contain the blaze. (A fire’s “containment” describes how much firefighters have encircled; 25% containment means a quarter of the fire perimeter is prevented from moving forward by manmade or natural fire breaks.)
Once a fire moves into an urban community and starts spreading house to house, however, as has already happened in Santa Monica, Pasadena, and other suburbs of Los Angeles, those strategies go out the window. A fire break starves a fire by introducing a gap in its fuel; it can be a cleared strip of vegetation, a river, or even a freeway. But you can’t just hack a fire break through a neighborhood. “Now you’re having to use big fire engines and spray lots of water,” Scopa said, compared to the wildlands where “we do a lot of firefighting without water.”
Water has already proven to be a significant issue in Los Angeles, where many hydrants near Palisades, the biggest of the five fires, had already gone dry by 3:00 a.m. Wednesday. “We’re fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging,” Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO Janisse Quiñones explained in a news conference later that same day.
LADWP said it had filled its 114 water storage tanks before the fires started, but the city’s water supply was never intended to stop a 17,000-acre fire. The hydrants are “meant to put out a two-house fire, a one-house fire, or something like that,” Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire researcher at Arizona State University, told me. Additionally, homeowners sometimes leave their sprinklers on in the hopes that it will help protect their house, or try to fight fires with their own hoses. At a certain point, the system — just like the city personnel — becomes overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the unfolding disaster.
Making matters worse is the wind, which restricted some of the aerial support firefighters typically employ. As gusts slowed on Thursday, retardant and water drops were able to resume, helping firefighters in their efforts. (The Eaton Fire, while still technically 0% contained because there are no established fire lines, has “significantly stopped” growing, The New York Times reports). Still, firefighters don’t typically “paint” neighborhoods; the drops, which don’t put out fires entirely so much as suppress them enough that firefighters can fight them at close range, are a liability. Kearns, however, told me that “the winds were so high, they weren’t able to do the water drops that they normally do and that are an enormous part of all fire operations,” and that “certainly compounded the problems of the fire hydrants running dry.”
Firefighters’ priority isn’t saving structures, though. “Firefighters save lives first before they have to deal with fire,” Alexander Maranghides, a fire protection engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the author of an ongoing case study of the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise, California, told me. That can be an enormous and time-consuming task in a dense area like suburban Los Angeles, and counterintuitively lead to more areas burning down. Speaking specifically from his conclusions about the Camp fire, which was similarly a wildland-urban interface, or WUI fire, Maranghides added, “It is very, very challenging because as things deteriorate — you’re talking about downed power lines, smoke obstructing visibility, and you end up with burn-overs,” when a fire moves so quickly that it overtakes people or fire crews. “And now you have to go and rescue those civilians who are caught in those burn-overs.” Sometimes, that requires firefighters to do triage — and let blocks burn to save lives.
Perhaps most ominously, the problems don’t end once the fire is out. When a house burns down, it is often the case that its water pipes burst. (This also adds to the water shortage woes during the event.) But when firefighters are simultaneously pumping water out of other parts of the system, air can be sucked down into those open water pipes. And not just any air. “We’re not talking about forest smoke, which is bad; we’re talking about WUI smoke, which is bad plus,” Maranghides said, again referring to his research in Paradise. “It’s not just wood burning; it’s wood, plastics, heavy metals, computers, cars, batteries, everything. You don’t want to be breathing it, and you don’t want it going into your water system.”
Water infrastructure can be damaged in other ways, as well. Because fires are burning “so much hotter now,” Kearns told me, contamination can occur due to melting PVC piping, which releases benzene, a carcinogen. Watersheds and reservoirs are also in danger of extended contamination, particularly once rains finally do come and wash soot, silt, debris, and potentially toxic flame retardant into nearby streams.
But that’s a problem for the future. In the meantime, Los Angeles — and lots of it — continues to burn.
“I don’t care how many resources you have; when the fires are burning like they do when we have Santa Anas, there’s so little you can do,” Scopa said. “All you can do is try to protect the people and get the people out, and try to keep your firefighters safe.”
Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Thursday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Five major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event this week:
Officials have not made any statements about the cause of any of the fires yet.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At about 27,000 acres burned, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 2,000 structures damaged so far, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 1,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between very wet and very dry years over the past eight decades. But climate change is expected to make dry years drier in Los Angeles. “The LA area is about 3°C warmer than it would be in preindustrial conditions, which (all else being equal) works to dry fuels and makes fires more intense,” Brown wrote.