As wildfires ravage the Los Angeles area, homeowners around the country have worried about their fire coverage.
What's happening?
Allen and Robyn Foulger of Draper, Utah, received a notice of nonrenewal from their insurance company, KUTV reported, and their neighbors had similar experiences.
"Through no fault of ours, we were being canceled and overnight put into a panic," Robyn said.
The Foulgers found fire coverage elsewhere — but it was much costlier.
Draper Fire Marshal Don Buckley told the station he gets calls every day about this issue.
Why is this important?
The rapidly rising global temperature is affecting wildfires' size, frequency, and severity, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
In LA, wildfires have killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings over the last two weeks. The Palisades and Eaton fires have burned nearly 38,000 acres after drought conditions and high winds created an ideal environment for blazes.
Similar scenes are becoming commonplace as humans continue to engage in activities — the burning of dirty energy sources such as coal and natural gas — that drive increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, including droughts and wildfires.
What's being done about lost fire coverage?
Homeowners can create defensible space around their homes to improve their chances of gaining or keeping fire insurance. That means removing flammable vegetation within 30 feet of the structures and clearing gutters and roofs of debris, such as leaves, twigs, bark, and branches.
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Move somewhere else 🌎 "Call your insurance agent; demand that they send somebody out to look at your property," Buckley told KUTV. "... Defensible space is the biggest way to keep homes from getting lost in a wildfire."
In a statement, the Utah Insurance Department said: "If a homeowner receives a nonrenewal notice, the first thing they should do is ask their insurance agent questions: Why is my policy being nonrenewed? What can I do to possibly keep the policy? In some cases, an insurer may reverse their decision if the homeowner reduces their wildfire risk."
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