Editor-DN
Paris:
Ten people killed, 10,000 buildings destroyed, 180,000 people displaced, $150 billion in damage.
Here are key figures showing the scale of the massive wildfires that have engulfed Los Angeles County since Tuesday.
Five fires continue
Los Angeles has been ravaged by five different major fires.
The largest, the Palisades Fire, northwest of the country’s second-most populous city, has consumed 81 square kilometers (31 square miles).
It has devastated the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, home to millionaires and celebrities.
The second, at 55 square kilometers, is the Eaton Fire in Altadena, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles. Two fires are still out of control, according to state agency Cal Fire.
Three much smaller blazes, the Kenneth Fire (four square kilometres), the Hearst Fire (three square kilometres) and the Lydia Fire (1.6 square kilometres) have been partially contained — 35 per cent, 37 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.
145 sq km
The fire has burned about 36,000 acres (14,500 hectares or 145 square kilometers).
The current blazes are small in size compared to other fires that have struck California in recent years, sometimes spreading to thousands of square kilometers.
However, they are particularly deadly and destructive because they are located in residential areas.
10 killed
To date, at least 10 people have died, the Los Angeles County coroner said Thursday.
At least two died in the Palisades fire and at least five in the Eaton fire, according to firefighters.
If even one of the fires kills six people, it would become one of the 20 deadliest in California history, according to official data.
10,000 buildings destroyed
At least 10,000 homes and other structures are already engulfed in smoke, according to Los Angeles County firefighters, including at least 5,000 in the Palisades fire and between 4,000 and 5,000 in the Eaton fire.
The two fires are already the most destructive in Los Angeles County history.
By comparison, the Camp Fire destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings north of Sacramento in November 2018, and the Tubbs Fire destroyed 5,600 north of San Francisco in October 2017.
180,000 people were evacuated.
About 180,000 people have been ordered to leave their neighborhoods. Authorities are urging residents to follow evacuation orders, as some residents stayed behind to try to save their properties.
The legendary Hollywood neighborhood, which at one point was threatened by the Sunset Fire, was also evacuated, but that order was lifted Thursday morning after the fire in its hills was contained.
20 arrests
Fire-ravaged neighborhoods face another threat: looting. Police have arrested at least 20 people for burglaries in the Los Angeles area since the first fire on Tuesday.
A night-time curfew has been declared and the National Guard has been deployed to patrol the affected areas.
150 billion dollar loss
With the destruction of luxury residences, the fire could be the costliest on record. AccuWeather, a private meteorological firm, estimated the damage at $135 to $150 billion. And it can go up.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
