The Santa Clarita Valley’s state legislators have mentioned several recent efforts to help residents impacted by the fires, from introducing legislation to help in recovery to lobbying Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to redrawing the area’s fire maps.
Both Sen. Suzette Valladares, R-Acton, and Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, sent out emails last week mentioning conversations with Lara that helped local residents. Sen. Henry Stern, D-Calabasas, announced that fire maps influenced by legislation he authored two years ago will be released next month.
On Feb. 25, Lara extended a one-year moratorium on non-renewals of homeowners insurance policies in ZIP codes impacted by the Hughes Fire.
Lara announced a fire-insurance cancellation moratorium Jan. 10 in response to concerns about the Eaton (Altadena), Hurst (Sylmar), Lidia (Acton) and Palisades fires that were all going at the time. His first order was a retroactive withdrawal of any policy-cancellation notices that might have been sent out between Oct. 9 and Jan. 7, a roughly 90-day period before the fires.
He also ordered a moratorium on policy cancellations and non-renewals for up to one year as a way to help affected homeowners in the areas impacted by fires, and he recently added the following ZIP codes to the order: 91354, 91355, 91381, 91383, 91384, 91390, 93040, 93222, 93225, 93243, 93532.
Valladares
Valladares wrote in a recent statement that if residents receive a cancellation notice, they can contact her office or the insurance commissioner.
“The Hughes Fire is another example of the increasing challenges we face,” she wrote. “We are seeing more extreme wildfires, more devastation, and an insurance market that isn’t keeping up with these growing threats. I’m grateful that the commissioner extended this relief and security to our community.”
Valladares’ office said the fire-insurance situation has been a priority, mentioning a previously related effort she made in the Assembly in 2021, Assembly Bill 2450, which she said was intended to “study policies to ease the insurance crisis.” Gov. Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the measure.
AB 267, which she said was intended to make it easier to remove potential wildfire fuel from federal land, ultimately died in the Senate in 2022.
On Feb. 3, she introduced a bill to streamline the undergrounding of power lines in wildfire-prone parts of the state, which was related to fire prevention.
L.A. County announced a lawsuit against Southern California Edison this week alleging Edison’s power equipment was responsible for the Eaton Fire. An official cause has not yet been declared by the Fire Department, and SCE officials said this week they are conducting their own investigation into the cause.
Schiavo
Schiavo also noted that she had been in contact with Lara’s office over the cancellation moratorium the day it was announced.
“When we learned that Hughes Fire survivors weren’t covered under the insurance moratorium, we immediately took action, bringing this need to the insurance commissioner,” she said. “I’m grateful for his responsiveness and for taking swift action. Our communities of Castaic, Val Verde and Santa Clarita have already been through so much, we must do everything we can to protect what is often the most important investment — your home.”
Her legislation this session has been focused on the rebuilding effort to help fire victims, she said in a recent phone interview.
Schiavo joined a bipartisan coalition of state and local leaders as Newsom signed a package of bills directing $2.5 billion toward wildfire relief, rebuilding and recovery, according to a January news release from her office. The bill sought to deliver much-needed funding and streamline the rebuilding process for fire-affected areas, according to the release.
A request from L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors’ agenda gives insight to the scale of damage in the aftermath of the fires.
On Feb. 21, Newsom requested more than $39.6 billion to “support business and workforce recovery, tax incentives, community and private property recovery and disaster resilience.”
On Tuesday, Barger, who chairs the board, is requesting approval for a letter supporting Newsom’s ask, as well as a 2025-26 supplemental state budget request seeking $900 million in revenue stabilization funding.
Stern
Stern’s Senate Bill 63, which was passed in 2021, required CalFire to map not only “very high,” but also “moderate” and “high” hazard zones in regions under local jurisdiction.
“The updated maps show significant increases in hazard zones across local, state, and federal jurisdictions,” according to a Feb. 18 email from Anne DiGrazia, Stern’s communications director. “This could have important implications for fire-prevention measures, emergency planning, and resources for local fire departments.”
The state’s fire marshal’s fire-severity zone maps, which are being updated this year for the first time since 2011, have major implications for homeowners and their fire insurance policies.
For example, selling a property located in a high or very high fire hazard severity zone requires documentation of a compliant Defensible Space Inspection, due to a 2021 state law. It can also impact a homeowner’s ability to get fire insurance.
Stern’s office said the maps provide “a more detailed picture of fire risk in local responsibility areas.”
County officials discussed the upcoming release of the fire maps, which is set for March 24, at a recent Castaic Area Town Council meeting.
“Last year, we went through the whole process” with the (State Responsibility Area) maps and updated them,” said Maria Grycan, community liaison for the L.A. County Fire Department, referring to the maps that indicate which fire jurisdictions are covered by CalFire and the U.S. Forest Service as the primary responders. “And now they are updating the LRA, which is the local responsibility area.”
Grycan said the agency sees them when CalFire releases them publicly and not before, because that’s the start of the 120-day comment period.
She said once the maps are released, they’ll be pretty much the final version, as the Fire Marshal’s Office is unlikely to make additional revisions.
“Ultimately, what I think is going to happen with the maps is if you remember there were very, very just little pockets within Castaic that had no designation as to a fire zone, that was not designated in any fire zone,” Grycan said, “and I think that when we see these new maps, what (L.A. County Fire) Chief (Pat) Sprengel and I are anticipating is that that lack of fire zone is going to disappear and that every little bit of Castaic will be in the fire zone.”
