Beyond the LA Wildfires: Breaking the Cycle and Scaling Solutions

Recent wildfires highlight the escalating nature of the crisis. Oregon’s 2024 fire season is being called the state’s most devastating in decades. Early 2025 also brought devastation to Los Angeles, in what may become the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. And just last month, wind-driven flames in Oklahoma killed four people and destroyed more than 400 structures, while a fast-moving fire in the Florida Keys forced the closure of a critical evacuation route.

Though shaped by different geographies and ignition sources, together these fires reflect a larger trend toward more frequent extreme weather events. While not all wildfires can be prevented—or even meaningfully mitigated—through landscape restoration, these efforts remain one of our most powerful tools to reduce fuel loads, strengthen ecosystems, and protect nearby communities from the worst impacts of catastrophic wildfire.

As recovery efforts continue in Los Angeles following January’s devastating blazes, communities have shifted from crisis to reckoning, and many are asking important questions that are being echoed across the country. What caused these fires? What conditions are making wildfires more destructive year after year? And why, despite the growing urgency, are we still struggling to shift from crisis response to sustained mitigation?

Why wildfires keep escalating—and what’s fueling the crisis

While investigations into the LA Fires are ongoing, the broader conditions driving wildfire risk in the area are well understood. Unlike higher-elevation montane forests, which have experienced too little fire over the past century, lower-elevation shrub-dominated chaparral landscapes like those in Southern California are now burning more frequently than they did historically. Human activity is the primary driver—over 90% of ignitions in Southern California are caused by people, and when combined with extreme weather conditions like high winds, these fires spread rapidly across flammable vegetation. Los Angeles has some of the most well-resourced fire departments in the nation, yet even they were stretched thin against the scale of these challenges.

Each time a major fire occurs, we see renewed attention on proactive solutions that could have mitigated the risks that lead to such destructive events, such as prescribed burns, fuels reduction, invasive species removal, and forest restoration. These strategies aren’t universally applicable, and they won’t stop every fire, especially in extreme wind events, but they remain among the most effective tools we have to reduce risk, improve ecosystem health, and better protect communities where they are ecologically appropriate. But too often, these efforts hit roadblocks before they can scale. Agencies face bureaucratic hurdles that slow the approval of critical projects, while land managers, utilities, and local governments lack clear pathways to pool their resources and coordinate investment.

We must bridge these financial gaps and unlock the funding needed to scale wildfire mitigation efforts in relevant areas before disaster strikes. Across the Western U.S., we’ve seen how public-private partnerships like the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) can unlock critical funding and financing for proactive land management in fire-prone regions, bringing together investors, utilities, and public agencies to share the costs.

“The wildfires in LA demonstrated the devastating toll of extreme weather events fueled by dry conditions and high winds, underscoring the urgency of sustained investment in wildfire resilience. Through public-private partnerships and financial tools like the FRB, we can help scale mitigation efforts by aligning funding across sectors and expanding the resources available for proactive wildfire risk reduction.”
— Zach Knight, CEO of Blue Forest

Scaling solutions requires proactive public and private investment

Catastrophic wildfires don’t just threaten nature; they disrupt water supply and power grids, drive up insurance costs, strain local economies, wipe out neighborhoods and businesses, and put billions of dollars in public recovery funds on the line. Residents witness devastating losses in the communities they and their loved ones call home. When utility infrastructure is damaged, service interruptions follow, cutting off water and power when people need them the most. As insurance claims rise, local families and businesses face growing uncertainty about coverage, affordability, and recovery. Businesses lose revenue as supply chains and workforces are impacted. Governments shoulder the growing burden of disaster response and recovery, and American taxpayers ultimately foot the bill.

To mitigate these escalating costs, proactive investments in wildfire resilience are crucial. For decades, these efforts have primarily depended on public funding, with federal, state, and local agencies—particularly the USDA Forest Service—leading the charge. However, public funding alone is not enough, and the landscape of funding for wildfire resilience has begun to shift. Entities that benefit from resilient ecosystems, including counties, public utilities, and the private sector are increasingly stepping up to contribute, helping extend the impact of public dollars. These contributions are essential to accelerating restoration and ensuring that essential work continues, even as government budgets fluctuate.

To date, Blue Forest has expended $5.3 million in federal funding—and leveraged that to attract over $40 million in non-federal investment directly into restoration work through Forest Resilience Bonds.

Progress will accelerate when more of us from both the public and private sector move from understanding the problem to actively investing in solutions. If utilities, insurers, and local governments stand to benefit from more resilient landscapes, shouldn’t they have a stake in funding the strategies that protect their infrastructure, rate-payers, and constituents? This approach not only makes economic sense but is also a necessary investment in the stability of the sectors that rely on healthy landscapes for their operations. We’re already seeing early efforts utilities funding forest restoration to protect infrastructure, insurers exploring risk reduction strategies, and governments prioritizing proactive land management. The more we can continue to demonstrate how proactive investment in resilience protects assets, reduces losses, and strengthens long-term financial stability, the more effectively these efforts can scale.

Achieving resiliency depends on cross-sector collaboration

As more stakeholders step up to invest in resilience, the next challenge is ensuring these efforts add up to real, lasting change. Even the most effective financial mechanisms fall short if wildfire mitigation efforts remain siloed, with each group tackling the problem from its own perspective. Reducing wildfire risk at scale requires an ‘all hands, all lands’ approach—one that recognizes no single entity can solve this crisis alone. Utilities, insurers, land managers, Tribal Nations, investors, conservation organizations, local governments and policymakers all have a stake in reducing wildfire risk, but without a shared framework for tackling this issue collectively, progress will remain piecemeal.

At the same time, collaboration means more than just bringing people to the table—it means aligning efforts with the specific needs of different landscapes. The groups working in California’s dry forests may not be the same as those managing wildfire risks in the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, or the chaparral landscapes of Southern California. Resilience strategies must be tailored to local ecosystems, and that requires diverse groups to build a shared understanding of the ecological and economic realities of their communities, landscapes, and watersheds.

This could be a turning point for wildfire resilience—but we need more partners to scale solutions

The communities impacted by the LA fires will be rebuilding for years to come. But resilience isn’t just about recovery—it’s about breaking the cycle of catastrophic fire and ensuring that communities, businesses, and landscapes are better prepared for the future.

Every sector has a stake in the solution, and the strongest outcomes emerge when we invest together. For utilities and water agencies, mitigating wildfire risk means protecting watersheds, infrastructure, and service reliability. For insurers and governments, proactive investment can reduce long-term financial exposure and stabilize recovery costs. For investors, emerging financial models are creating new ways to fund resilience while maintaining sustainable business models in the long-term. For land managers, Tribal Nations, and local communities, scaling resources for fuel reduction, prescribed fire, and restoration is critical for building landscapes that are more fire-adapted and ecologically sustainable.

Financial tools like the Forest Resilience Bond have already demonstrated how public-private partnerships can fund large-scale resilience work. We need to continue expanding this model, recognizing that no single solution or sector can tackle this alone. Now is the time to align efforts, scale proven restoration work, and finance wildfire resilience as a shared priority.

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