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One year ago today, Americans watched in horror as Los Angeles burst into flames.

The scenes from that day were horrific. Dystopic. And absolutely heartbreaking.


More than two dozen lives were lost. Thousands of structures—including beloved family homes—were destroyed. And the total property and capital losses? A whopping $76 to $131 billion.


Things will never be the same.


Which is why we must ask: How did this happen? Was it just an inevitable natural disaster? Or could we have taken measures to stop or at least mitigate the damage?


More importantly, how can we ensure this never happens again?


Independent Institute’s new California Golden Fleece^® report calls for bold reforms to ensure disasters like this don’t repeat themselves—and calls out the institutional and policy failures that transformed a natural disaster into a heartbreaking catastrophe.

In his new report, The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires: Lessons and Key Recommendations, Research Fellow Kristian Fors lays bare the hard lessons revealed by last year’s wildfires. With clarity and conviction, he identifies the actions required by government and private actors to prevent a tragedy of this scale from happening again. Unless these reforms are implemented, Fors warns, California will remain vulnerable to another severe wildfire.

“While California cannot prevent major windstorms, it can decide how to manage its resources and whether to adopt the reforms necessary to reduce wildfire risk.”

—Kristian Fors
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What are the California Golden Fleece ([link removed]) ^® ([link removed]) Awards ([link removed]) ? They are a series of in-depth reports from the Independent Institute that expose waste, fraud, and abuse in California on the state or local level. Each report has three goals:
* to expose government waste
* to increase transparency into the inner workings of government
* to hold government accountable at all levels when they swindle taxpayers or break public trust by giving the public meaningful information

A program, agency, policy, tax, or regulation must violate common-sense principles of responsible government to receive a California Golden Fleece^® Award. That’s why the ignoble recipients of this award are Southern California Edison, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, zoning restrictions, Proposition 103, Harvey Rosenfield, California insurance commissioners, the California Environmental Quality Act, and the California Coastal Commission.

To find out more about the California Golden Fleece^® Awards, the Independent Institute, and how you can be a part of real solutions, visit us online ([link removed]) or follow us on X @CAGoldenFleece ([link removed]) . Past reports have exposed the harmful impact of California’s CalGang database and gang laws ([link removed]) on civil liberties and justice; the corruption that led to California’s higher gas prices ([link removed]) ; the stupidity and cruelty of automated license plate readers ([link removed]) ; and more.


** REPORT AUTHOR
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Kristian Fors ([link removed]) is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and director of the California Golden Fleece^® Awards. His research focuses on public policy and economics, with an emphasis on government waste and inefficiencies in California. He earned a BA in economics from Utah State University, an MA in international relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and an MSc in behavioral science from the London School of Economics. During the Eaton Fire, he was forced to evacuate from his family’s Los Angeles home.
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