The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
Fanned by hot, dry winds, wildfires north of San Francisco and near Los Angeles have forced the evacuation of more than 215,000 people, including in Malibu, the coastal enclave of the rich and famous.
The fires have grown to about 131,000 acres overall and threaten to destroy tens of thousands of structures, according to the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. More than 50,000 homes and business have lost power. At least nine people were killed in the northern fire, according to local officials.
The so-called Camp Fire in Northern California has now destroyed more structures than any other wildfire in state history, according to data compiled by Cal Fire.
President Trump, in Paris
to celebrate the end of World War I, attributed the spread of the flames to what he called gross mismanagement of the forests.
Authorities are investigating electrical equipment as one of several possible causes of that blaze, about 240 kilometres northeast of San Francisco, Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said.
A PG&E transmission line in the area went offline 15 minutes before the blaze was first reported, the company said in a regulatory filing.