Billions of dollars are needed to restore all areas devastated by the destructive wildfires in California and Los Angeles in particular. According to estimates by weather forecasting company AccuWeather, the damage costs in this case amount to an astonishing $250–$275 billion! Such is the toll of the wildfires in Southern California.
AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter defined these devastating fires as “some of the worst” in the history of the sunny state. Fires in the Pacific Palisades area, west of Los Angeles, and Altadena, to the east, have destroyed more than 12,000 buildings. Among the losses are some of the most expensive residential properties in the country, located between Santa Monica and Malibu, where the average property price reaches $2 million.
Experts believe that the Los Angeles fires surpass other recent natural disasters in the United States in scale, including the wildfires in Hawaii in 2023 and last year’s Hurricane Helen.
California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported that the recent wildfire area in Los Angeles exceeded 163 square kilometers. This means the area affected by flames is now larger than the entire country of Liechtenstein. Moreover, the risk of further fire spread remains alarmingly high.
