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2007 California Wildfires

$10-million tab

By Bettina Boxall
, Jack Leonard and Julie Cart
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Statewide:

CalFire Assistant Deputy Director Ken Pimlott said it was too early to estimate the cost of this week’s firefighting efforts, but that it would amount to at least $10 million. ‘Where it will land will depend on how long it goes on this week,’ he said.

Who pays for the firefighting on nonfederal lands depends on a complicated set of cost-sharing agreements. But in big, destructive wildland blazes such as those in Southern California in the last two days, most of the tab is ultimately picked up by the federal government.

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The state and local jurisdictions initially pay for the firefighting, with the state absorbing the larger share. But the state can then obtain assistance grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover 75% of the cost.

And when wildfires are bad enough to be declared a federal disaster, such as the 2003 wildfires, FEMA picks up more than 90% of the firefighting expense.

-- Bettina Boxall, Jack Leonard and Julie Cart

2007 California Wildfires
Bettina Boxall

Bettina Boxall covered water and the environment for the Los Angeles Times before retiring in 2021 after 34 years at the paper. She shared the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting with colleague Julie Cart for their five-part series on the causes and effects of escalating wildfire in the West.

Jack Leonard

As senior editor of investigations, Jack Leonard oversaw the work of a team of investigative reporters. As a reporter, he was part of the team that exposed fraud and abuse in California’s conservatorship system, a series that won several national awards. He went on to investigate how early releases from L.A.’s jail system perverts justice and fosters more crime on the street. Later, he worked on a sweeping expose of abuse and corruption in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

Julie Cart

Julie Cart is a former environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she’s also been a sportswriter and a national correspondent. In 2009, Cart and colleague Bettina Boxall won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. She left The Times in 2015.

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