California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s disaster chief quietly retired in late December amid criticism over the state’s indecisive stance on whether soil testing was necessary to protect survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires.

One year ago, Nancy Ward, then the director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spearhead the cleanup of toxic ash and fire debris cloaking more than 12,000 homes across Los Angeles County.

Although Ward’s decision ensured the federal government would assume the bulk of disaster costs, it came with a major trade off. FEMA was unwilling to pay for soil sampling to confirm these homes weren’t still heavily contaminated with toxic substances after the cleanup — testing that California state agencies have typically done following similar fires in the past.

Following intense backlash from fire survivors and California lawmakers, Ward pleaded with FEMA to reconsider its soil-testing stance, writing in a Feb. 19 letter that it is “critical to protect public health” and “ensure that survivors can safely return to their homes.” Her request was denied.

However, in October, Cal OES — under Ward’s leadership — privately considered discontinuing state funding for soil testing in the aftermath of future wildfires, according to a confidential, internal draft memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The Times requested an interview with Ward, and sent questions to her office asking about her initial decision to forgo soil testing and for clarity on the future of state’s fire recovery policy. Ward declined the request; The Times later published an article on Dec. 29 about allegations that federal contractors illegally dumped toxic ash and misused contaminated soil in breach of state policy.

Ward, who served as Cal OES director for three years, retired on Dec. 30; her deputy director, Christina Curry, stepped into the role as the interim chief. Ward also did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

Ward was the first woman to serve as Cal OES director. She had also previously served as a FEMA regional administrator, overseeing federal disaster response in the Southwest and Pacific Islands from 2006 to 2014.

A Cal OES spokesperson said Ward’s retirement had been planned well in advance.

“Director Nancy Ward has been a steady hand and a compassionate leader through some of California’s largest disasters,” the spokesperson said. “Her decades of service have made our state stronger, safer, and more resilient. The Governor is deeply grateful for her dedication and wishes her the very best in retirement.”

The internal memo obtained by The Times was written by Ward’s assistant director, and titled: “Should the state continue to pay for soil testing as part of Private Property Debris Removal (PPDR) programs? ”

It laid out three possible answers: The state could keep funding soil testing after future wildfires; the state could defer soil testing decisions to the affected counties with the possibility of reimbursing them; or the state could stop paying for soil testing entirely.

A Cal OES spokesperson said the memo was only a draft and did not represent a policy change. “The state’s position on soil testing remains unchanged,” the spokesperson said. “California is committed to advocating for the safe, timely removal of wildfire debris. Protecting the public health and well-being of impacted communities remains the state’s foremost priority.”

The primary reason for soil testing is to prevent harmful exposures to toxic metals, such as brain-damaging lead or cancer-causing arsenic. Since 2007, comprehensive soil testing has been conducted after 64 wildfire cleanups in California, according to the memo. When soil contamination still exceeded state benchmarks after the initial cleanup, the state government redeployed cleanup workers to remove more dirt and then retest the properties.

This approach, the memo said, was critical in identifying harmful substances that “pose exposure hazards via ingestion, inhalation of dust, or through garden/food production.” Soil testing “helps ensure the safety” of children, seniors, pregnant women and people with health issues who are “more vulnerable to soilborne toxins.”

“The State has a long precedent of conducting or paying for soil testing,” the Cal OES assistant director wrote in the memo.  “Pivoting from this would be a significant policy change.”

The memo cites a report from CalRecycle, the agency that has historically carried out state-led fire cleanups, that stresses the importance of the current practice to public health.

“Soil contamination after a wildfire is an invisible threat,” wrote a CalRecycle official. “If not properly cleaned and remediated in a methodical way, property owners may encounter additional hurdles during the rebuilding process and suffer additional trauma.”

“Soil sampling,” the official adds, “is the metric by which Recyclable demonstrates that debris removal operations have successfully remediated the post-disaster threat to public health and the environment.”

However, such soil testing and additional cleanup prolongs the cleanup timeline and can make it more expensive. The memo cites cost estimates from CalRecycle which show that soil testing and additional cleanup work usually costs some $4,000 to $6,000 per parcel, representing 3% to 6% of overall debris removal costs.

The state cost projections align with those made by independent environmental experts. Andrews Whelton, a Purdue University professor who researches natural disasters, estimated that soil testing and further remediation for the Eaton and Palisades fire would cost between $40 million to $70 million.

All told, the CalRecycle report states the usual soil-testing process has been a “relatively low-cost step” to safeguard public health.

Further, although soil testing may add some cost, when it’s taken as a proactive measure, it can save money down the road.

Forgoing soil testing and evidence-backed remediation can generate uncertainty about toxic contamination, which in turn could lower the value of homes in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, Whelton said. What’s more, the property owner may be liable for soil contamination if they fail to disclose environmental risks when selling or leasing.

The internal CalOES memo alludes to this give and take: “Funds saved initially by skipping testing may be outweighed by later unseen costs, for example, reinvesting in remediation, addressing community complaints, litigation, or cleanup failure.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has fielded over 1,100 complaints filed by property owners affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires — over 20% of which were related to the quality of work. According to internal reports obtained by The Times, federal cleanup repeatedly deviated from cleanup protocols, likely spreading contamination in the process.

Since then, FEMA officials have backed down from their hard-line stance against paying for post-fire soil testing in California in an attempt to shore up public confidence in the federal cleanup.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that FEMA will conduct a limited lead-testing program in the Eaton fire burn scar that is intended to “confirm the effectiveness of cleanup methods,” according to an EPA spokesperson. The initiative has already come under the scrutiny of environmental experts who say it lacks the rigor of California’s soil testing regimen.

It remains unclear if California will continue to implement soil-testing safeguards that made the state a national leader in fire recovery. Though state officials say these will remain unchanged, there is no legal mandate to follow these procedures.

The internal CalOES memo circulated under Ward’s leadership has only added to the cloud of uncertainty.

One thing is clear: It’s a moot point for survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fire.

As state and federal officials debated the value of soil testing, most Altadena and Pacific Palisades residents have been left to investigate the extent of environmental fallout on their own.

California officials are issuing warnings about a new flu strain that is increasing flu-related cases and hospitalizations statewide, with public health experts across the nation echoing the alerts.

A newly emerged influenza A strain, H3N2 subclade K, is already wreaking havoc globally and is affecting hospitals and clinics in California, the state’s Department of Public Health announced Tuesday. The agency described the seasonal flu activity as “elevated” in the state; data show that flu test positivity rates, which measure the percentage of patients who come in with flu symptoms and actually test positive for influenza, have been rising in recent weeks. However, they are still relatively low compared to last year’s flu season.

“Flu started to rise, in earnest, by mid-December and rates are still up,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional physician chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente. “We are hoping to see some plateauing in the next few weeks, but there’s some delay in data due to recent holidays, so it will become clearer in the next week or so.”

Hudson said most flu-related cases are being treated without the need for hospital admittance, “but those who are older or at higher risk for complications from the flu are the ones we’re mostly seeing admitted.”

According to data from the public health agency, there’s a high rate of positive flu cases in Central California and the Bay Area and a moderate rate around Sacramento and Southern California. In the northern part of the state where it’s more rural, the rate of flu cases is currently low, according to the agency’s website.

In Los Angeles County, recent data from the health department show that between the end of last year and the start of 2026, there were 162 flu-related hospitalizations and an additional 18 cases in which patients were admitted for intensive care.

Nationally, this flu season has been far worse than in California. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this flu season has led to the highest number of cases in the U.S. in more than 30 years. The agency estimates that there have been at least 15 million infections in the U.S., with 180,000 hospitalizations and 7,400 deaths, since late fall. At least two of those who died have been children, said Yvonne Maldonado, the Taube professor of global health and infectious disease at Stanford Medicine, in a news release. The state’s Department of Public Health confirmed that those pediatric flu-associated deaths occurred in California.

Last year, infectious disease experts predicted this flu season would be particularly bad for high-risk groups, specifically children, due to a decline in flu vaccination rates and a “souped-up mutant” flu strain, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, told The Times.

Last year’s flu season was particularly bad, “but little did we know what was in store for us this year,” said Dr. Neha Nanda, medical director of antimicrobial stewardship with Keck Medicine of USC. Nanda said she is seeing an early upward trend in positive influenza cases this season compared with previous years, though it isn’t quite on par with last year, or from the years preceding COVID — at least in California.

Dr. Sam Torbati, co-chair and medical director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s emergency department, said that around the second week of December he saw a lot of patients coming into his department with flu-related illnesses, part of a surge in hospitalizations that was seen throughout the county.

He said he doesn’t recall “seeing this many patients becoming this ill.”

“It’s very early in the flu season and may get much worse,” Torbati said.

Experts believe the strain has mutated to “more likely evade” immunity from the current vaccine. That’s because the strain emerged toward the end of the summer, long after health officials had already determined the formula for the flu vaccine.

“Current seasonal flu vaccines remain effective at reducing severe illness and hospitalization, including the currently circulating viruses,” said Dr. Erica Pan, state public health officer.

Even though the flu shot might not keep you from succumbing to the illness, “it lessens your odds of having a severe case, keeps you out of the hospital and shortens the duration of the illness,” said Dr. Michelle Barron, senior medical director of infection prevention and control for UCHealth, in a report by the Assn. of American Medical Colleges.

Officials are urging the public, especially those at higher risk for severe flu complications such as the very young and older populations, to get vaccinated or take immediate antiviral treatment, such as Tamiflu.

The flu can be very serious with symptoms — fatigue, fever, cough and body aches — that feel like you got “hit by a Mack truck,” Hudson said.

For children and other high-risk individuals, the symptoms can be more severe.

“Children can develop dehydration [or] pneumonia, and more severe cases of flu in kids can lead to inflammation of the brain and heart,” Hudson said.

The problem has not been limited to the U.S. The influenza A strain, H3N2 subclade K, has caused severe flu seasons in Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe and Asia.