Electrical Insulation, 2025 LA Wildfires, and Asbestos
In the wake of burning buildings, be cautious about exposure to damaged asbestos building materials like asbestos, especially in older electrical components, systems and insulation.
Each year, home electrical fires cause nearly 500 deaths, more than 1,400 serious injuries, and over $1 billion in property damage. Commercial electrical fires are even more widespread and destructive. To reduce this risk, before 1980, builders wrapped electrical wires in chrysotile asbestos. This mineral doesn’t conduct electricity or heat. To supplement this “protection,” builders usually laced drywall, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and many other parts of homes and businesses with asbestos as well.
The cost of this protection was very high, and we aren’t talking about dollars and cents. We’re talking about something much more valuable, which is the health and safety of the workers who built these dwellings and the people who live in them. More on that below.
Nearly every building constructed before the mid-1980s contained asbestos building materials.
These risks escalate when disasters strike, like the 2025 LA wildfires. Fire doesn’t destroy chrysotile asbestos. But it does destroy the houses themselves. When that happens, toxic smoke blankets the entire area. Additionally, since asbestos particles are only slightly heavier than air, they often float far away from the source before they come to rest. Finally, since wildfires often don’t completely destroy homes, renovation and demolition workers often later stumble across any asbestos that remains in the house.
Learn about Asbestos and the Electric Power Industry.
Asbestos exposure illnesses are terrible in every sense of the word. An asbestos exposure lawyer cannot change what happened in the past. But a lawyer does the next best thing, which is obtain the compensation these families need to move on with their lives.
Asbestos Cloth Insulation
This insulation material is basically an ACE bandage for electrical wires, plumbing pipes, and other objects that require wrapped insulation.
When people rip or cut ACE bandages, the airborne fibers, dust, and other particles are harmless. But when workers cut or ripped asbestos cloth insulation, that action releases toxic fibers into the air. These particles are incredibly tiny. Twenty thousand of them can fit between Honest Abe’s mouth and nose on a penny.
Millions of workers inhaled asbestos on the job because they weren’t warned or provided protective equipment.
As a result, workers often ingested these fibers without knowing it. If workers didn’t inhale these fibers, they absorbed directly through the skin. Additionally, the flimsy cloth quickly breaks down. Stray fibers then seep through hairline cracks in walls and other surfaces, infecting anyone who walks in the room.
Asbestos cloth insulation is still commercially available, usually from China or Russia, the two largest suppliers of asbestos. These countries have few or no environmental quality laws. Things are different in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. By 1980, asbestos use sharply declined, mostly because of Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act regulations. By 2000, asbestos use largely ceased, thanks to another round of regulations.
Electricians are at an elevated risk for asbestos exposure.
Disaster-Related Asbestos Exposure
In 2025, 2000 is ancient history. But asbestos exposure is not yesterday’s problem. Natural and manmade disasters transform yesterday’s problem into today’s problem. Disasters release contained asbestos fibers into the air. As mentioned, the toxic smoke scatters asbestos fibers over a wide area.
The World Trade Center Attacks and Asbestos Exposure
The same thing happened on 9/11. Much like many of the houses in Los Angeles, the Twin Towers were built before 1980. Therefore, they were packed with asbestos, especially in the lower floors, which were constructed during the asbestos use heyday. Those particles infected countless New Yorkers. Because asbestos exposure diseases have such long latency periods, the full health impacts of 9/11 probably won’t be clear until at least 2050.
Airborne fibers are only part of the problem. Asbestos fibers also embed themselves in the earth. After wildfires on Maui in 2023, asbestos fibers sank into volcanic rocks, where they continue to pollute groundwater. This pollution is permanent. Waterproof asbestos is much like PFAS and other “forever chemicals” in this aspect.
Disaster-related diseases also create legal problems for asbestos exposure lawyers. 9/11 is easy to trace to the Twin Towers. But 2025 LA wildfire-related exposure could be connected to one of thousands of structures.
Fortunately for victims, the burden of proof in a civil case is only a preponderance of the evidence (more likely than not). So, a little connection evidence goes a long way. Furthermore, we use advanced technology to pinpoint the source and tip the scales of justice in favor of victims.
Asbestos Illnesses and Court Cases
As mentioned, asbestos exposure diseases, such as mesothelioma, have very long latency periods. Mesothelioma is a particularly nasty form of a very nasty disease. Asbestos exposure also causes pleural thickening, asbestosis, and other serious breathing conditions.
The latency of asbestos diseases is 20-50+ years; asbestos-related cancer and health problems may not surface until several decades after exposure.
Because of this latency period, the statute of limitations has usually expired by the time asbestos exposure cases go to court. Nevertheless, because of a loophole in the law, a full range of legal options is available, at least in most states.
Legal options for addressing asbestos-exposure injuries can include:
Civil Suit: Polluting companies are legally responsible for the illnesses and injuries they negligently cause, usually because they failed to adequately warn people about the extreme hazards of asbestos exposure.
Workers’ Compensation: If the asbestos exposure illness was work related, available benefits usually include partial lost wage replacement and payment of all reasonably necessary medical bills. Full workers’ compensation benefits are available even if the victim was partially at fault for the exposure.
Disability: Social Security Disability is available to civilians, and VA disability is available to military veterans. We discussed civilian exposure above. Before 1980, all Navy ships were laced with asbestos from bow to stern. Similar benefits, mostly doctor bill payments and monthly cash, are available through both programs.
Bankruptcy VCF: Many asbestos companies declared bankruptcy to avoid civil liability. Congress passed a law requiring these companies to move most of their assets into victim compensation funds. Although these claims are often difficult to resolve, a bankruptcy VCF matter is usually the quickest and straightest route to fair compensation.
Compensation in a civil case usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are usually available as well.