Can you imagine all your possessions, those little mementos, photographs, and your home burned to ash? The cherished reminders of a life well-lived—family heirlooms, the art your children proudly brought home, the smell of holiday meals that once filled the air—all gone in a sudden, unrelenting blaze. The Los Angeles wildfires have not only scorched the land but have also stripped countless families of their sense of security and place. The heartbreak goes beyond material loss; it’s the erasure of the spaces where memories were made and futures planned. In the face of such devastation, the resilience of these communities inspires awe, but they need our compassion, support, and advocacy to begin the long journey of rebuilding their lives.
A good place to start looking for sage advice about how to recover from a wildfire is from John Putnam. Here is part of his biography:
He has worked 55 years in the insurance business, including time as a claims representative, systems procedures analyst, property and casualty (P&C) agent, and independent insurance agency owner/officer. He has been a licensed P&C insurance agent in Colorado for over 40 years. Currently, he is a semiretired insurance consultant/broker/teacher who teaches a wide range of insurance continuing education classes.
In 2012–2013, Mr. Putnam served as the insurance consultant to the Colorado Springs Together Waldo Canyon Wildfire recovery team. In that capacity, he not only worked with the team managing the overall recovery process but also provided individual claim mentoring to approximately 200 residents of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood who either lost their homes or suffered partial losses. More recently, he has counseled approximately 150 survivors of the Black Forest Fire. Because wildfire leads to flood events, he became interested in noncoastal flooding and finding new ways to cover those exposures. In 2022–2023, he formed another team to perform a similar service for the survivors of the Marshall Fire that burned over 1,000 homes.
Putnam’s article, “Collaborating to Prevent, Prepare for, and Recover from Wildfires,” is a must-read for those who want to recover from wildfire devastation. He warns that this should start right away:
Two huge lessons were learned from that experience: (1) While insurance plays a large role in post-wildfire recovery, it does not have all the answers to the many issues arising from such events, and (2) collaboration with other community stakeholders and the fire survivors themselves led to a quicker and more robust recovery than any wildfire recoveries that I have followed in the past 13 years.
Great synergy is created to help victims when the major community players come together: builders, building code inspectors, fire, police, emergency managers, etc. Many issues can be more expeditiously handled when you have everyone in the room, discussing and reaching a consensus on the best paths forward, and recognizing each other’s expertise. For example, discuss how best to handle debris removal with the health department, fire department, contractors, emergency managers, and the insurance guy!
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Takeaways: (1) When the right stakeholders are in the same room, solutions can be achieved using synergistic power, and (2) the governmental processes are much more cumbersome as they take more time to achieve consensus and implement. From my experiences with the three Colorado wildfire recoveries, the first responders were better prepared and executed their tasks with more precision than the second responders. In addition, they always create an ‘after action report’ of what they learned from the experience. Insurers and private entities need to adopt such a practice to make continuous improvements in how they address future incidents.
In Public-Private Partnerships and Wildfire Recovery, he again noted that the recovery response needs to be immediate:
Any recovery organizational design needs to act quickly, leverage community and public resources, and stay agile to change course as necessary as the facts on the ground may change.
Putnam noted that Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) information identifies the following key elements for any recovery:
- Include all community stakeholders in the oversight and management of the recovery.
- Coordinate the many recovery tasks to identify and resolve choke points.
- Act quickly, giving the survivors hope that recovery will happen.
- Involve the neighborhood stakeholders.
- Complete the job.
- Build back better than before.
Putnam then outlines what he calls “subrecoveries:”
Rebuild, repair, and/or replace real and personal property. This was accomplished by each resident’s insurance company but relied on CST’s coordination of debris removal, building permits and codes, and related city services.
Restoring survivor lives to a new normal. The traumatic shock of losing homes and belongings plays a major role in the recovery effort. After a major disaster, everyone recovers at a different rate and needs specialized help to facilitate this process. CST did not handle this counseling assistance, but a partner agency, Aspen Pointe, did.
Infrastructure rebuild and repair. The Waldo Fire impacted the infrastructure in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood. Because not all residents suffered structural fire loss, an early focus by the Colorado Springs Utilities was to ensure all utilities were both safe and available so other neighbors could return home. Additional infrastructure items (i.e., replacement of group mailboxes and underground sprinklers) required repair or replacement before the neighborhood could fully recover. These infrastructure issues were outside CST’s mission, but we did have the organizational structure to bring the stakeholders together to find solutions in a few instances.
Environmental recovery. The adjacent national forest was severely impacted by the wildfire. Although there was a lot of community interest in assisting in revegetating this land, forest restoration is usually slower due to the significant impact on the soil, which takes more time to recover, especially when steep slopes are involved. CST played virtually no role in this phase of the recovery except for providing information about mitigation of the area from potential flash floods as well as from dangerous burned trees.
Business recovery. Even though there were few businesses that suffered direct damage to their buildings, many depended on the business of the displaced residents for their home-based livelihood. These losses were hard to quantify and to make economically whole. In addition, there were many Mountain Shadows homeowners who lost their livelihood due to the loss of their homes. Although our focus was not directly on business recovery, we did have a couple of strategies designed to help them.
The Colorado Springs Together website is an excellent example of how a community or neighborhood can share information and help nurture a faster recovery from wildfire devastation. The website leaves this positive message:
This website will stay live as a resource to families affected by wildfires.
Although we will continue updating the Progress Report numbers on our homepage, we will not post any other new materials on the website and donations will no longer be accepted online.
What an incredible recovery. We salute you, Mountain Shadows residents!
I gave a FoxNews Live interview yesterday afternoon about these wildfires. I told the interviewer my hope is that recovery starts immediately so that others have hope that their neighborhoods will be restored.
Hope is a powerful force, one that fuels resilience even in the darkest moments. For those who have lost everything, hope becomes a lifeline—a belief that, despite the devastation, brighter days lie ahead. It’s the foundation for rebuilding homes, restoring communities, and healing hearts. Recovery is never easy, but with the strength of those affected and the support of compassionate neighbors, policymakers, organizations, and those of us in the insurance claims business who genuinely care, hope can transform into action. We can help restore not just what was lost but also the spirit and unity that make communities strong.
For those of us in the insurance claims industry, moments like these are a call to action and a test of our commitment to the people we serve. Our role is not just about processing claims; it’s about providing guidance, reassurance, and fairness to those navigating the aftermath of unimaginable loss. We have the opportunity to ensure that policyholders receive the support and compensation they are entitled to without unnecessary delays or disputes. By approaching each policyholder with empathy, integrity, and a deep sense of responsibility, we can play a vital part in helping families and communities rebuild, restore, and find hope again.
Thought For The Day
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
—Walt Disney
