These are the United States' most costly wildfires
Los Angeles is in the midst of battling multiple wildfires that have ravaged homes and businesses as they’ve blazed through the Southern California city.
A JP Morgan report said Thursday that "expectations of economic losses stemming from the fires have more than doubled since yesterday to closer to $50 billion," estimating insured losses "could exceed $20 billion (and even more if the fires are not controlled)."
That, according to JPMorgan analysts, would make the ongoing California wildfires "significantly more severe than the 2018 Butte County Camp fires, the highest insured loss wildfires in California’s history previously."
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As of Thursday evening, multiple wildfires were active in Los Angeles County, including three that were 0% contained, the CalFire website showed. At least five people have lost their lives.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday over 7,500 firefighting and emergency personnel were combating the flames.
Four of the five most costly wildfires that the U.S. has seen were in California, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
The Camp Fire emerged Nov. 8, 2018 and raged for 17 days in Northern California. Its flames wreaked an inflation-adjusted $12.4 billion in losses, the NFPA reported.
The blaze spanned over 153,300 acres, razing 18,800 homes, buildings and commercial properties, per CalFire. It destroyed nearly the entire town of Paradise.
Some 52,000 people evacuated during the Camp Fire.
While it raged, 85 people lost their lives. CalFire considers it to be the deadliest blaze the Golden State has experienced.
The inflation-adjusted cost of the Tubbs Fire, which affected Napa and Sonoma Counties in California in 2017, was nearly $11.05 billion, according to the NFPA.
The blaze took place amid the "October 2017 Fire Siege." That was when Northern California saw over 170 fires.
The Tubbs Fire was "caused by a private electrical system adjacent to a residential structure," CalFire said in 2019. It left 22 people dead.
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The Lahaina Fire on the Hawaiian island of Maui occurred in August 2023. The death toll was 101.
"The cause of the fire was the re-energization of broken utility lines which caused the ejection of molten metallic materials (sparks) to fall to the base of pole 25, igniting the unmaintained vegetation below. Additionally the arcing and severing of the energized
overhead power line between pole 25 and 24 resulted in that line falling to the ground,
subsequently igniting vegetation below," a report published by the County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety said. "The continuation of the fire via rekindle was due to a hidden piece of smoldering material that made its way at an undetermined time via undetermined means to a susceptible fuel package in the gully just to the east and south of the existing burn area."
Preliminary inflation-adjusted losses from the fire amounted to $6.18 billion, the NFPA said.
The Woolsey Fire cost $5.2 billion on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to the NFPA. CalFire reported flames from the 2018 inferno affected over 96,900 acres in California.
The National Parks Service said 88% of land it managed within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was scorched.
Inflation-adjusted losses of $3.893 billion arose out of the 2,900-acre Tunnel Fire in the Oakland Hills area of California in 1991, per the NFPA.
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Some 1,500 Northern California firefighters were involved in efforts to extinguish the fire when it was at its worst, according to the East Bay Regional Park District.
The U.S. faces tens of thousands of wildfires each year. Nearly 56,600 occurred in 2023, per the National Interagency Fire Center. The year preceding that saw almost 69,000.
Eric Revell contributed to this report.