Wildfire cleanup questions: Health concerns, how long it takes, insurance, and more

How soon can the cleanup from LA’s wildfires begin? How long will it take? Can it be done safely and equitably? How can I monitor the impact on air and water around me? What about the beaches? How will local officials decide where to start and how to prioritize what gets cleaned up first? Can we get transparency on their decisions?

The R&S Kayne Foundation and KCRW organized a public information session on Monday, Jan. 27 to provide quality information and practical advice regarding the cleanup process for people living in or near areas affected by the LA fires and open to all. Topics include the process and timeline, seeking realistic expectations based on experiences of communities such as Lahaina on Maui, Paradise CA and others that have faced large-scale wildfire cleanup, health and environmental concerns/mitigation, understanding the choices that local officials will have to make, and how the public can seek transparency/accountability as the process plays out.

Video and transcript available below.

Moderator: Madeleine Brand, host of KCRW’s Press Play

Panelists:

  • Professor Andrew Whelton – Professor of Environmental Engineering at Purdue University, consulted on Paradise, Maui and other fire recovery efforts
  • Dr. Nichole Quick, Deputy Director of Health Protection Bureau at LA Dept of Public Health
  • Kevin Phillips, Paradise CA Town Manager, previously worked for Paradise Irrigation, Also worked on Maui recovery
  • Tracy Quinn – President and CEO of Heal the Bay
  • Dr. Rachael Jones – exposure scientist, industrial hygienist, and professor in environmental health sciences at UCLA

The event is available to view below in both English and Spanish. Scroll for the written Q&A in English. 

In English:

En Español:


Links to resources discussed in the event: 

LA County beach water quality advisories 

Beach report card 

Drinking water and property guidance from Purdue University 

KCRW Good Food segment on home gardens and produce safety

Air quality data

Guide to lookup your water provider 

LA County recovery site 

Southern California Education and Research Center at UCLA webinar on Thurs. Jan 30 on protecting workers performing cleanup activities. The event is free.

Paradise rebuilding study

Fannie Mae Disaster Resources


Questions and answers from the session have been adapted below from an automated transcript. Edited for clarity and length. Please consult the recording above to verify any direct quotes.

Q:  Rough timeline, how long before people can be cleared to go back to their homes?

Kevin Phillips:  I hate to say it, but we're all kind of in this together now. It's going to take patience and it's going to take a lot of hard work, but you guys can do it and we can get your town rebuilt.  We've been working on this for the last six years in Paradise and we're seeing the fruits of our labor. So, just want to start with that. 

The debris removal in Paradise took a while and it was because of the unprecedented nature of the disaster. We had 14,000 homes destroyed.  They really had to almost create the game plan with us. I'm hoping it's going to be quicker with you guys because there were so many lessons learned that came along with that. But what we saw was a 12 to 18 month process to really get your property back. Some got it back quicker than others.  We had to do it all with contractors in Paradise. So we did our own procurement. We did our own contracting bidding that really slowed down the process. So if FEMA and the Army Corps are willing to come in and get it done it actually speeds the process up.  The big thing is [that] you have a lot of regulatory requirements to get through. You have to make sure all of your citizens sign a Right of Entry on their property. They can't come on your property unless you sign up for that Right of Entry. So get your paperwork in place so that you can get your property cleared as quickly as possible.  [This] is something you can do to help get your property back to you as quickly as possible.

Q: There has been some confusion over whether  you should let the government clear the debris or whether you should hire private debris removal services. What's better?

Kevin Phillips:  It's different for each person, so you really need to look at what your insurance covers. If your insurance has very robust debris removal, and you feel like you can get it done [through them] quicker than the government, then go for it. If, if your insurance policy is not going to cover the entire thing, I can tell you the government's going to cover that gap. So [in that case] it’s gonna make more sense for you to go into the government program. There were a lot of people [in Paradise]  that went to the private program. They got their property done quicker than the government program because they were the priority to that contractor, not just a parcel in the database [when] they're trying to go through to prioritize — street by street or whatever they're going to do. I would  heavily look at your insurance policy to see which one's better for you.

Q: What do people have to be concerned about when they finally get to go back to see their property?

Prof. Andrew Whelton:  When evacuation orders are lifted, that does not necessarily mean that walking around in your property is safe to do.  First of all, you may have a standing home, but your neighbor's property may have been damaged and some of that ash and debris may have blown onto your property.  Or you unfortunately lost your home, vehicles, and such.

You have to be very careful, because there are hazardous waste materials on site. You don't want to take children. Don't visit your properties as a family affair. Try to do it without putting people in potential harm. And if you do have to go, definitely follow the directions of state and county health officials about the types of safety gear you need to wear — closed toed shoes, long pants, [etc.] And then think about how you're going to get back in your car.  Are you going to track that ash into the car and then take it home with you? Or are you going to clean your feet and other things and leave it at the site?

Q: What more can you tell us about the toxicity of these materials that are now all over these burn sites?

Dr. Rachael Jones:  There's a couple different types of materials that are present. There are some strictly hazardous materials. [I.E.]: If you had an electric car and that lithium battery is still in your garage [it] could create a runaway fire. If you have propane tanks that are on the site, [they] might have been damaged and are potentially explosive. Those are the acute hazards, the life safety concerns about visiting your property.

The other element about visiting your property is that there's going to be debris. So that would be burnt materials as well as ash — ash in particular may be caustic and that will cause you to perhaps have symptoms of irritation in your eyes, nose, and throat. Those symptoms should resolve once you leave the site, but that would be an acute indication that you are getting exposed to some of the materials. Because it is burnt, building debris [will have] plastic components as well as metals — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Those things aren't going to cause you to necessarily have an acute illness, but you want to avoid being exposed to them to the extent possible. Wear  a respiratory protective device like an N95 respirator or a P100 respirator to reduce your potential for inhalation. And be sure that you're wearing coverings over your body that can be washed or removed so that you don't bring those materials back to your car and to your home or get them onto your skin.

Q:  When do you know if the air is safe to breathe? 

Dr. Rachael Jones:  I think at this point we're no longer particularly concerned about air pollution from the active fires, but I think we are concerned that when you're moving debris around you're causing things to be aerosolized. Those [then become] things you can breathe in and will be hazardous to your health. I think that when you are actively working in a pile of debris, you should anticipate that this is occurring and take appropriate precautions.

Q: Has the recent rain done a good thing for the air quality?

Dr. Nichole Quick:  Yes, for air quality, absolutely. But anytime we get rain after an event like this, or [during] any active poor air quality situations, it really transfers those toxins and contaminants into different [areas].  So then we are concerned with where that water runoff [ends up]. We have been closely following runoff associated with the recent rain and its effect on ocean water quality and later today, we will be issuing a  closure for beaches associated with fire debris, because a lot of that debris has, of course, washed out through storm drains into the ocean and that.  A closure has been issued from Las Flores State Beach to Santa Monica State Beach because a lot of [fire] debris has washed out through storm drains and into the ocean. 

Q: How long do you think those parts of the ocean will be unsafe?

Dr. Nichole Quick: This is a bit complicated because we actually have a couple different advisories right now. The closure related to fire debris will be in place until that fire debris is no longer visible. But we also have a rain advisory, so anytime after it rains we issue a rain advisory for 72 hours, so that is still in place.  I really urge folks to go to the County website for these advisories, because it's a bit complicated right now. [You can sign up for email alerts through the LA County Public Health website as well]. 

Q:  Tracy, as president of Heal the Bay, what are your concerns when it comes to the ocean?

Tracy Quinn:  I think we just experienced a first flush, and it was a really bad one because it hadn't rained in nine months. First flushes are always bad. Every amount of trash that's [been] thrown onto the freeway from Pasadena all the way to the Palisades gets flushed out.  We're seeing pet waste, medical waste, a tremendous amount of plastic, all of that comes out. So it's already unsafe to swim. You may see some images, trash strewn all over our beaches, as far as the eye can see. That's definitely concerning. And then with the added element of the unprecedented fires, we have — obviously — the toxic ash that has run off.  [It’s] a lot of chemicals we don't usually deal with. We're usually focused on bacteria. Now we're worried about PAHs, PCBs, and PFAs. We're also really concerned about damaged sewers and whether or not any of that sewage waste is getting into our storm drains and coming out into our oceans as well — exacerbating  public health concerns.

 You can go to our beach report card app, download it on your phone, or you can go to beach report card dot org. [This helps with] staying up to date on water quality information and knowing where and when it's safe to swim. You can do that year round for about 700 beaches across the West Coast.

Q: Our condo community in the Palisades had no exterior damage, but there is soot and ash on the interior. What are the steps needed to safely clean and repopulate our building?

Dr. Rachael Jones:  There's a couple of things that you can do, depending on the severity of the contamination that's there, as well as what you think you might be able to negotiate for your insurance company. If you have light levels of soot and ash, the general process is simply to clean those surfaces. Wash the walls, wash the floors, and use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter to clean  upholstery items. You can vacuum with a similar type of device and do steam cleaning of carpets, and so I would say that that is an approach. This would be the first level of cleaning. And if you feel like that's something that you can't do, or [that it] would be inadequate, there are professional companies that can come out and do services. But if the extent of the contamination is quite severe, then there are companies that do remediation services. They may come in and do an inspection of the structure first to make sure that there is no structural damage — inspect the attics and the ventilation system to make sure that there aren’t any embers that got into those areas and caused damage. [Then they can] recommend either cleaning by yourself, through a private organization, or if replacements of interior materials [are needed before you clean]. 

Q: How do, you know, if an item is contaminated, if it doesn't look obviously covered in ash?

Dr. Rachael Jones:  You can use the sniff test. If something's been contaminated with smoke it may have an acrid odor, or a wood smoke kind of odor that you could use to detect it.  After you clean, you can check and see if you are detecting any residual odors. Some of the materials will continue to off gas — [meaning, they might still be transmitting] volatile and semi-volatile chemicals. When you do a cleaning, you want to make sure that it's a thorough cleaning and that when you wipe a surface with a white piece of paper you're not getting any material coming up.

Dr. Nichole Quick: I really would urge individuals to reach out to their insurance agents, or bring in a consulting firm to assess whether or not more is needed because it's a one on one situation and each assessment requires some visual inspection and so forth. So it really is in people's best interest to get that sort of expert help.

Q:  Kevin, in your experience, how quickly and easily is that done to get this expert help to assess the livability of your structure?

Kevin Phillips:  It goes back to that pressure from the insurance companies to get you back into your home. You really got to push back on that. It's in their best interest to get you into the home, but it's got to be safe.  Reach out to those experts to get some opinions. Really look at your insurance policy to see what areas it covers. It should cover these types of expenses. Then finding a reputable company that's going to give you a good recommendation about how much it's going to cost and what really needs to happen.  A lot of insurance companies already have ones that you can select without even getting bids — [reputable companies] to come in and get this stuff cleaned up quickly.  There [are also] chemicals that adhere to the smoke particles and bring them down and then [you just] vacuum it up. It's amazing how quickly that can help clean up some of this damage, but definitely push back on your insurance companies if they're giving you a hard time on that type of investigation.

Q: What should people be on the lookout for when it comes to fraud?

Kevin Phillips:  There's laws out there and I think your building department really needs to be educated on those to make sure that information is given out to these individuals that are rebuilding. They need to understand all of the complexities. [One thing to know is that] $1,000 is the max deposit you can give a contractor before any work has started. Make sure to look at a contractors list, make sure that they're all licensed contractors. There's a lot of desperation out there for people to get their houses rebuilt. That's when these fraudulent people come out of the woodwork. So really make sure people are educated on what the laws are, what the responsibility of the contractor is, and that they are just as educated as that contractor. Fraud will happen, and you just have to make sure you protect yourself. 

Dr. Rachael Jones: [Also] homeowners may be hiring day laborers, or using their domestic workers to do cleanup activities. It's very important that as a homeowner you understand your responsibility to protect these workers. So if you have a person, a domestic worker that works with your family in your home, and you ask them to do cleanup activities, you need to provide them protective equipment and other rights to comply with OSHA regulations.

Cal/OSHA has determined that though domestic workers are generally exempt from most regulations, if they are doing fire cleanup activities, those regulations would apply. As well as if you hire an individual to come to your house to remove debris, or update your landscaping — you have some responsibility for their health and safety.

You need to be aware that you're not putting them at risk,  because if they are injured at their workplace, there may be responsibility for you or for your insurance company to address that issue. People are looking for work, want to work, and do good work through these avenues. But you need to be cautious as a homeowner to ensure that you are not putting them in danger.

Q: For homes with severe smoke damage, what items can be truly rehabilitated and what should be thrown away — especially for those living with young children?

Dr. Nichole Quick: In general, yes, we do take children’s exposure a little bit more critically than others. It was mentioned earlier and I'll mention it again. Do not have your kids help with cleanup. This should be adults only if you're going into your home, sorting through, and looking for any potential things that have made it through a fire.

 We recognize the importance of that for people, but don't do that with your kids. So yes, try to protect kids more [across the board]. [As for] things for your kids that could be appropriately cleaned:  If you have toys and so forth that have a non-porous surface, those can be often cleaned off. If you have something that's like a plush stuffed animal, and it's retaining that smoke smell, that's something you don't want your child playing with. That’s some basic guidance there.

Q: Along similar lines…  Our home survived, but many homes in our block burned. Should we wait to move home with our young kids until all the neighborhood debris is picked up?

Dr. Rachael Jones: [ Wait for the whole cleanup before moving back.] You don't want to have your children around the contracting work, the large vehicles, or other heavy equipment. That's a significant risk factor for them. And you don't want them to be participating in the cleaning activities. 

Q:  I live 5 miles from the Eaton burn area, is produce from my garden safe to eat?

KCRW’s Good Food has you covered for this one.

Q: What is the best resource to understand how to check air and water quality? 

 Dr. Nichole Quick:  On the air quality, the AQI is important for people to follow regardless in the LA area. One of the great places to get that is the South Coast Air Quality Management District. You can sign up for air alerts there, or you can use their mobile app, which will give you those air alerts as well as a community level AQI. 

Prof. Andrew Whelton:  Some of the, uh, water utilities are making statements about lifting orders and advisories so contact your drinking water provider. If you don't know who that is, go to Water for LA, look that up. Then contact who it says you receive water from. Ask them your questions directly. Talk to other customers about the communications that you're receiving. Talk with people in your neighborhood to band together to start asking questions.  Call your elected officials if you're still wondering. That will help grease skids towards a two way communication. Recovery is not just utilities telling you what's going on, it's the customers communicating back and informing utilities about things that they potentially didn't know — like, you didn't get water back, or your water is not on even though your home is still standing and it wasn't affected by the fire.

Q:  During phase 2 of the cleanup, when more ash and debris will be kicked back into the air, what is the real concern for how far particulate matter can travel?

Dr. Rachael Jones:  So, with the debris removal, hopefully they'll be using some control technologies to minimize the potential for dust to be generated into the air.  So you may see during the debris removal that they're wedding items to keep the dust from being resuspended while it's being moved. When it's in trucks traveling [it should] be covered. I would think that the concern is really mostly a local concern, not something that I would be worried about living away from the actual recovery sites. If you can’t see it [it shouldn’t  be too concerning].  It really is a fairly local concern, unless there's some kind of anomaly with strong winds.

Q:   In the burn zone, how can we tell what our toxic load is? How often should we change respirator cartridges, gloves, protective clothing, et cetera? Is it based on ash and dust daily, hourly, once we taste it? 

Dr. Rachael Jones: With the clothing, I think it's important that if you are using a Tyvek suit or a glove, if the integrity of that is damaged, you should change it out. If you get a hole in the glove, or a tear in your clothes — change those out. With the respirator, you should ideally have had the respirator tested to make sure that it fits your face well.  One thing is that when people who are inexperienced wear a respirator, they will tend to not secure it tightly enough to their face because it's a bit uncomfortable. When you are wearing the respirator, you want to make sure that it has a very tight seal to your face. Indications that you need to change the respirator would be that it becomes more difficult to breathe through the respirator,  or if you taste or smell material inside the respirator, or when you take your respirator off if you see material inside the respirator.  So, for example, if it doesn't fit very well around your nose (which is common with the N95s) then you'll see soil forming on your nose. That indicates that it's not providing adequate protection. …  It's probably a better idea to try to secure an elastomeric respirator, those are the rubber ones. This is because they're more comfortable to wear over time, and they can fit more securely. You can really pull down on the straps to make sure that it's sealed tightly to your face.

Q:  Since the rain, my neighborhood has begun to smell of chemicals, though the AQI is good. Is that from the rain interacting with the ash and a cause for concern?

Prof. Andrew Whelton:  An N95 will not do anything for that. What you're smelling is not particles, or pieces of dirt, or ash debris — you're actually smelling the gases that left that debris that the water dissolved. It’s different because it's personal belongings. It's batteries, it's cars, it's all sorts of stuff. So you generally want to avoid that area. There are respirators that you can use that can remove some of those chemicals, but I would recommend avoiding [the area if you’re smelling chemicals]. 

Dr. Rachael Jones: If you’re smelling chemical odors [and can’t avoid the area], you need to have an elastomeric respirator. So those are the rubber respirators and you need to have a cartridge on it that's capable of removing organic vapors. So if you go to the hardware store you'll see that the cartridges have different colors and different symbols on them.  So you might find an N95 or P100 cartridge, that cartridge will only filter out particulates. You might also see an organic vapor cartridge and that device will filter out the organic vapors. Those two things may be combined into one cartridge, or they may be two cartridges that attach onto in series on your respirator. [Editor’s note:] Check for updates from Dr. Jones’ colleagues at  The Southern California Education Research Center. They are in the process of putting together a fact sheet to explain more about respiratory protection. 

Q: Any final words of wisdom to offer?

Prof. Andrew Whelton:   What the community is going through, other people have gone through before. Believe it. And there is hope because all of these people want to help you and your officials. Public health departments, state agencies, and such. If you have any questions, make sure you reach out to your elected leaders and your agencies for advice and support, and make sure you're communicating to them what you need.

 Q: Kevin, you particularly underscore that, right? Be the loudest squeaky wheel, right? You have to raise your voice or you won't be heard?

 That's right, yeah. And there is hope, definitely. There's resources out there to help you through this. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to question some of the things that maybe aren't sitting right for you. Fannie and Freddie have amazing resources out there. There's actually a hotline you can call and get an individual person assigned to you that will help you through your rebuild process. There's new studies out there about how to be more resilient on your rebuild. We did a study in Paradise about how to protect your home for a future natural disaster. This type of building science is helping bring insurance back to your communities.

So really think outside the box at this point in time. Really ask the questions about what's moving forward. The one thing I always say is that your local jurisdictions should set a goal the day after the disaster, and it's to get people home as quickly as possible. Everything follows that line of thinking. So you need to make sure you're pushing them to get you back home as quickly as possible. The faster you can get people back home, the faster the jurisdictions can recover. So it's in the best of both interests here.