Supervisory Support for 2025 Southern California Wildfires Response Efforts 

Long after wildfires are extinguished, ongoing efforts continue to assess long-term damage and contamination. CSS employee owners are often heavily involved in these efforts and follow up to ensure response operations do not impact the environment. 

Response efforts in South California continued throughout the year following the 2025 wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles area. CSS continued to support the damage assessment through a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9 Superfund Technical Assessment & Response Team (START) subcontract with Weston Solutions, Inc.  

CSS START Senior Chemist supported Phase 1 (removing hazardous material) of the 2025 Southern California wildfires response in the field as a group supervisor, overseeing six START field team leaders and collaborating with the EPA group supervisor to effectively and efficiently conduct removal of household hazardous materials (such as batteries, chemicals, paint, cleaners, and more) from residential properties affected by the wildfires. This prepares the area for Phase 2 (debris removal) and reduces risk of additional contamination and exposure to residents, and keeps those items out of local landfills. 

As part of Phase 1 wildfire responses, staff on site conduct soil sampling and testing before and after staging of collected hazardous materials for disposal, to confirm that operations did not impact the soil at that site. CSS observed this process for reporting purposes and acted as a third-party validator for collected samples. 

Throughout the ongoing Phase 1 effort, CSS START staff supported the EPA Environmental Unit with the response by observing the sampling, validating the analytical data from the laboratory, and summarizing the process and results in reports that provide official documentation for public record. 

Learn more about additional support CSS provided during this response effort.