Accuweather estimates the damage and economic loss estimates in the Los Angeles wildfires at $250-$275 billion and still increasing.
Losses are set to exceed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, even after adjusting for inflation. The LA fires will be costliest natural disaster in US history.
In terms of number of burned buildings the Los Angeles fire is in the range of the San Francisco fire of 1906 and the London fire of 1666.
In 2018, California had the Camp Fire which destroyed 18805 buildings.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Then there is article arguing there should be no human structures in malibu.
https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu-burn/
This, of course, is not a ‘natural’ catastrophe so much as a diversity-hire/ democrat-incompetence fiasco. The absurd level of civil non-protection, infrastructure-reliability/preparedness failure, government (municipal, county, state) mismanagement, and utter disregard for safety budgets and good engineering/PM system monitoring is almost 3rd-world in its negligence — Backward Savages running through the trees as fire runs them down. Epic. I am, unfortunately, undecided on the current local Numpty’s new policy of disallowing predatory-vultures from swooping in to claim burnt out properties for a fraction of their pre-fire value (unofficial offers), as delayed and unmet claims and financial hardship devastate all affected.
It would be interesting to see the estimates of losses due to change in valuation models for the entire area. The reason for that is obvious: next year may be the same as this one, so there is a permanent risk for the entire area to burn down due to current conditions that have caused it to burn down. And as these conditions are getting worse, not better, that also must be accounted for in valuation. Bottom line, land valuation in a de facto warzone is very much less than that in a designated celebrity sanctuary. We are looking at many trillions in lost value, which is a highly leveraged collateral for oh so many AAA-rated loans. We have seen this movie before, right?
The lowered value is entirely due to decades of voters not demanding preparedness and competence from the people they elect. The value will bounce right back as soon as that is addressed – which is likely in the wake of an event like this. It would perhaps be the greatest kindness if the govt could offer to cover mortgage interest costs for a few years for those who have lost their homes – so that they are not doubly screwed by temporary drop in land values when they have lost everything.