Thoughts on Wildfires, After Los Angeles

 

Los Angeles, January 2025 (iStock)

In January 2025, Los Angeles and its environs was hit by a series of destructive wildfires.

It was hardly the first destructive and fatal wildfire in California, or in the United States.

In February, Richard Green, Faculty Director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate, Kevork Zoryan, Chair of the Lusk Center Advisory Board, and Christopher Boone, Dean of USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy, convened a Lusk Center Advisory Board meeting to discuss ongoing efforts by the Center and by other USC academics, board members and other members of the greater LA real estate community, and local officials and community members to facilitate recovery and reconstruction, and to draw lessons to mitigate future wildfire losses.

I was invited to make a few remarks, on "Reconstruction and Development: A Few Observations from Abroad." Given the importance of the topic, of course I agreed, and prepared some slides to frame my remarks.

I discussed provisional lessons from a review of some experiences of reconstruction, focusing on lessons from other countries. Many of these experiences relate to reconstruction after conflict, rather than wildfires. My hope was to offer some general lessons, whatever the type of disaster, time and place.

Eight other academics and professionals made pesentations and/or participated in a panel discussion; many of the roughly hundred in-person participants offered their experience and expertise.

We were focused by the fact that a number of our colleagues had themselves lost homes; virtually everyone in the room had a relative or neighbor or friend who had suffered a loss.

I learned a lot from our meeting, and on my return to Newton (home of the Massachusetts outpost of the University of Wisconsin's Graaskamp Center, of which I am to my knowledge the sole faculty member and student) I dug a little deeper into the subject of wildfires, in the United States and elsewhere. My slide deck expanded somewhat.

For those who are interested you can download the current version here.  I say current version because this is a fast-moving topic and there is a lot of research coming out (much of it from USC, including a collaboration with colleagues at UCLA) which I have yet to absorb. As always, I encourage anyone who wants to use any of these materials in your own (not-for-profit) teaching or other presentations. Comments and, especially, corrections are always welcome.