‘A ton of unknowns’: months ago, LA residents lost wildfire insurance. Then the fires came

Workers stand along Pacific Coast Highway over homes damaged by the Palisades fire in Malibu, California, on Wednesday. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

When James Borow realized last Tuesday that his Palisades house was on fire, he was 300 miles away in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. The power was out at his house but a friend suggested he remotely turn on his Tesla and see if the cameras showed anything.

From the car camera, he watched in a panic as his house burned. As he drove home from Vegas to LA, he called his parents and told them: “You’ll see it on the news tomorrow, but the house is totally gone. I just watched it.”