Though the Los Angeles fires are far from the largest wildfires California has seen in recent years, they have been incredibly devastating because of their proximity to densely populated areas. The Palisades and Eaton fires have destroyed more than 1,000 structures each, making them the most destructive wildfires to ever hit Los Angeles, the authorities said.
The Palisades fire alone accounts for “thousands” of destroyed structures, fire officials said, which will most likely rank it among the most destructive in California history.
The state’s most devastating wildfire is the 2018 Camp fire, which destroyed more than 18,000 structures on 153,000 acres. The second most destructive fire, the Tubbs fire, destroyed 5,600 structures in Napa and Sonoma Counties in 2017.
The Tunnel fire in Oakland Hills in 1991, the Cedar fire in San Diego County in 2003 and the North Complex fire in 2020 all destroyed between 2,000 and 3,000 structures each. They are the third, fourth and fifth most destructive in the state, and the current Los Angeles fires could rank among them.
An exact tally of the fires’ impact will not be available any time soon, said David Acuna, a spokesman with Cal Fire, the state fire agency, but he added that the authorities “are confident there are thousands of homes destroyed.”
By contrast, the August Complex fire, which burned more than a million acres in a largely rural area of Northern California in 2020, destroyed fewer than 1,000 structures, according to Cal Fire data.
A structure can refer to not only a commercial building or a residence, officials said, but also other property like cars, mobile homes and sheds.
The Oakland Hills fire in 1991 burned just 1,600 acres — a smaller footprint than the more than 25,000 acres that the Palisades and Eaton fires had burned around Los Angeles as of Thursday — but, like the Los Angeles fires, it took place around a densely populated area and remains the state’s third most destructive fire in history. It destroyed 2,900 structures.
Officials have said that damage estimates for the current Los Angeles fires were preliminary and likely to increase in the coming days as fires continue to rage and officials make assessments.
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