Devastating fires torched more homes and businesses in Los Angeles County on Wednesday, exploding in size and adding to the more than 1,100 structures that had already been destroyed by dawn, with one early estimate putting the potential damage at near $10 billion.
Even before the additional homes and apartments were destroyed , the largest of the fires – the Palisades Fire – was quickly pushing its way upward on the list of most destructive fires in the state’s history with at least 1,000 destroyed structures. The fire had burned more than 15,000 acres, while the other large fire in the county, the Eaton Fire, had burned 10,600 acres and more than 200 structures, county officials said. At least five people were reported dead.
The acreage burned still paled in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of acres burned in the largest wildfires in the state’s history, but that fact was offset by the real estate prices in the areas burning in Southern California, said Char Miller, professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College in Claremont, California and author of Burn Scars, a history of fire suppression in the U.S. published last September.