I am one of those survivors. I lead Every Fire Survivor’s Network, which represents more than 10,000 people affected by California wildfires. This year, a group calling itself Wildfire Victims First has been sending mailers and running advertisements across the state, positioning itself as a voice for people like me. It is not. That organization is funded by California’s three for-profit electric monopolies, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, and it does not speak for the families who actually lost their homes, businesses and loved ones.

The real numbers tell a different story than the one being marketed to Californians. Eighteen months after the Eaton Fire, roughly two-thirds of survivors remain displaced from their homes. Retirement accounts have been emptied. Credit cards are maxed out. More than half of us are on the verge of losing whatever temporary housing we’ve managed to secure.

Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom is reportedly negotiating another utility relief package behind closed doors, ahead of the Legislature’s return in August. Survivors have seen this playbook before, and we know how it typically ends.

Last September, in the final 48 hours of the legislative session, Newsom and legislative leaders gutted Senate Bill 254 — originally intended to protect wildfire survivors — and replaced it with a 231-page measure that instead shielded California’s electric utilities. The rewrite came so late that lawmakers had to extend the session just to satisfy the state’s constitutional requirement for a 72-hour public review period. Some legislators later admitted they cast votes without fully understanding what was in the bill. One observer described the maneuver to the Los Angeles Times as “effectively a bailout.”

That is not how democratic government is supposed to function.

State regulators justified the move by warning that utilities faced financial collapse without intervention. The California Public Utilities Commission subsequently approved a $1.1 billion rate increase for Southern California Edison, along with nearly $1 billion in retroactive charges — paid for by California ratepayers to the very utility whose equipment investigators have identified as the probable cause of the Eaton Fire.

Two months later, Edison raised its shareholder dividend for the 22nd consecutive year, bringing the total payout to nearly $1.3 billion. The company’s three largest institutional shareholders are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. Thanks in part to the rate increases, Edison’s profits more than tripled in 2025, climbing from $1.3 billion to $4.5 billion. CEO Pedro Pizarro’s compensation rose 20% to $16.5 million.

This wasn’t a rescue from bankruptcy. It was a transfer of wealth from working Californians to Wall Street investors — occurring the same year the Eaton Fire claimed 19 lives and upended the futures of tens of thousands of residents across the San Gabriel Valley and beyond.

California lawmakers and the governor now face a defining choice: stand with the families who lost everything, or continue shielding the corporations whose equipment has been linked to some of the state’s deadliest fires.

A national coalition has launched a campaign, DearNewsom.org, backed by organizations including the NAACP, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network — representing 70 immigrant rights groups — and Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization with more than a million members. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said the letter urges the governor to choose democracy over corporate influence, calling on him to “stand with survivors, reject policies that shield corporate misconduct and ensure California leads the nation by putting people before powerful interests.”

The message is straightforward: no more utility bailouts negotiated in private before survivors have been made whole.

If Newsom believes his proposals genuinely serve California’s interests, he should make that case publicly, through the normal legislative process — not through last-minute language inserted days before lawmakers adjourn. California has an opportunity to set a national example of accountability, rather than demonstrate what happens when corporate influence overrides the democratic process.

The principle at stake is one most of us learned as children, and one that underpins our civil justice system: if you break it, you fix it. Not: you break it, your victims lose everything, and the shareholders and executives responsible walk away wealthier than before.

If the outcome of repeated catastrophic wildfires continues to be record corporate profits, record executive pay and record shareholder dividends, then that is precisely the outcome this system will keep delivering.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Keeps Rewarding Utilities Even After Catastrophic Wildfires appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

By Wednesday morning, Ms. Brown, 63, saw that the building was “completely just not there at all.”

Iris Kameny, Ms. Brown’s mother, had evacuated to Chino, Calif., ahead of the fire, but precious family photos and artwork were lost, as was furniture Mrs. Kameny purchased around the time she got married, in 1959.

The Palisades fire and the Eaton fire, which have burned homes and entire neighborhoods as they have torn through the Los Angeles area this week, are thought to be among the most destructive fires ever to hit the city. And experts warn that the fires have put many residents, particularly those like Mrs. Kameny who have lost their homes, at risk of deep, long-lasting mental health ramifications.

“The loss of a home, the displacement you experience, the difficulty of rebuilding, living with the anxiety that this might happen to you again — all that combines to create, for many people, lasting psychological harm,” said Dr. David P. Eisenman, a primary care physician and director of the U.C.L.A. Center for Public Health and Disasters. Studies suggest that even those who do not lose homes can have anxiety, depression or psychological distress for years after a wildfire dies out.

Since 2020, California’s most destructive wildfires have destroyed more than 10,000 homes, businesses and other buildings, according to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

For some people who lost homes in previous California wildfires, the current disaster in Los Angeles has caused renewed anxiety.

Eric Reinbold, the police chief of Paradise, Calif., said he never thought he would live in the town again after the devastating Camp fire reduced his home and many others to “a heap of ash” in 2018. Nearly 14,000 residences were destroyed and 86 people were killed by that fire.

Mr. Reinbold, his wife and their three children evacuated to nearby Chico and lived there for five years before deciding to rebuild in Paradise.

“It was hard to make that decision, to come back to a town where we lost everything,” he said.

He said he was limiting his exposure to news of the wildfires around Los Angeles to avoid dredging up the anxiety and grief he still sometimes experiences thinking about the home his family lost and the scars to his community.

Studies have shown that wildfires can have both short-term and long-term effects on the mental health of survivors. In a paper published last year, researchers found an increase in emergency room visits for anxiety disorders after wildfire events in California and other parts of the Western United States.

Another study in Fort McMurray, a town in Alberta, Canada, that was evacuated during a 2016 wildfire, found that about a third of residents were dealing with depression, anxiety, a substance-use disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder a year after the event. And researchers who followed those affected by a bush fire in Victoria, Australia, found that about 4 percent of the people were still suffering psychological distress a decade later.

It’s not just the loss of life or property that people mourn. Survivors of wildfires can suffer a collective sense of loss from damage to the natural environment, Dr. Eisenman said. He and his wife experienced the feeling themselves this week as they watched the Palisades fire consume beloved hiking trails.

In some cases, living in a damaged home can be more difficult than a complete loss, said Jonathan Sury, a public health researcher at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School. Mr. Sury and his colleagues studied the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the mental health of New Jersey residents and found that even those whose homes sustained minor damage experienced anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after the storm.

For residents who have fled the Los Angeles area and don’t yet know the fate of their homes, the uncertainty can be traumatic, Mr. Sury added.

Shabnam Melwani, another resident of Pacific Palisades, fled her home on Tuesday after firefighters told people to evacuate. Before leaving, she grabbed a statue of Lord Ganesh, a Hindu god known as the remover of obstacles, and placed it outside her front door.

Ms. Melwani, 55, spent the evening at her cousin’s home in Santa Monica, overwhelmed with fear. Five years ago, she packed her bags and left her community in Singapore behind in search of a new life in California for her family. Ms. Melwani feared she would lose her home again.

But Wednesday morning she received a message from a neighbor who said that her house had withstood the blazes so far, and most likely had only sustained damage from smoke and soot.

For Ms. Brown, watching her mother’s home go up in flames left her “shellshocked,” she said — but at least knowing what had happened was a “saving grace.”

“There is no question whether it might still be standing or not,” she said.

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