California fires seem as costly as hurricane at $19bn

Bloomberg

The most destructive series of wildfires in California history co-uld cost the state, insurers and homeowners at least $19 billion in damages, as firefighters struggled to gain control in swirling wi-nds across vast swaths of state.
The carnage caused by fires north of San Francisco and near Los Angeles could be on par with the type of destruction triggered by Hurricane Michael, which left Florida in disarray earlier this year, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research who pegged the hurricane’s damages at some $25 billion.
Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano told reporters that the Camp Fire, which charred the town of Paradise in Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire, in suburban L.A., have already killed 31 residents. They’ve torc-hed more than 6,700 structures.
“The California fires are as bad as folks think they are,” Watson said. “Insurance for fire is already becoming an issue in California and this won’t help that industry.” Weather forecasters are predicting more winds for California and no sign of the seasonal rain that typically dampens the brush in Northern California in time to prevent such disasters. Instead, some 250,000 people have already fled their homes across the state, including in Malibu, the coastal enclave of the rich and famous. Some 149,000 people remain evacuated, Mark Ghilarducci, director of California’s Office of Emergency Services, said.
Governor Jerry Brown formally asked President Donald Trump to release new federal aid in a “major disaster declaration.’’ The request for emergency funding to support housing, crisis management and infrastructure recovery efforts came a day after Trump threatened to withhold federal payments to California.
“We’re putting everything we’ve got into the fight against these fires, and this request ensures communities on the front lines get additional federal aid,” Brown said in a written statement.Initially, Trump had threatened to withhold money because of what he called “gross mismanagement of the forests.” His later tweets were more measured, saying that “our hearts are with those fighting the fires.” Trump tweeted again to encourage “pr-oper” management to “stop the devastation constantly going on in California.” “Statewide we are in a climate change and it is going to be here for the foreseeable future,” said Daryl Osby, chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. “Six out of the last seven years, we’ve been in a drought.”
The blazes have spread to more than 196,000 acres and threaten to destroy tens of thousands of structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. About 50,000 homes and businesses have lost power, and 8,000 local, state and federal firefighters are on the scene.
Authorities are investigating electrical equipment as one of several possible causes of the Camp blaze, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, Cal Fire spo-kesman Scott McLean said. Utility PG&E Corp. is still struggling to cope with losses from last year’s deadly fires that could cost it as much as $17.3 billion in liabilities, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimate.
Almost half of California faces elevated risk for fires, with some 15.5 million people living in critical areas that include Los Angeles and San Jose, according to Brian Squitieri, fire-weather forecaster at the US Climate Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.