The two largest firestorms devastating Los Angeles County this week already rank among California’s 20 most damaging wildfires.
Before the Palisades and Eaton fires, CalFire stats showed only 18 wildfires in history scorched more structures than preliminary damage tallies from these two Southern California conflagrations. CalFire defines structures to include “homes, outbuildings (barns, garages, sheds, etc) and commercial properties destroyed.”
By CalFire’s history, the fire hammering the Pacific Palisades-Malibu area has already destroyed 1,000-plus structures with no deaths across 17,234 acres. The Eaton fire, hitting the Pasadena-Altadena region, has destroyed 972 structures with five deaths across 10,600 acres.
This Top 20 list shows this week’s catastrophes are extremely late in a typical fire season. No other high-damage wildfires occurred in January, one was in December and three in November.
The most destructive California wildfire, when ranked by structure damage, is the Camp fire, which hit 18,804 structures in November 2018 with 85 deaths across 153,336 acres in Butte County.
Other wildfires in the Top 20 for structure destruction, ranked by the number of properties involved …
Tubbs: 5,636 structures in October 2017, 22 deaths, across 36,807 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties.
Tunnel-Oakland Hills: 2,900 structures in October 1991, 25 deaths, across 1,600 acres in Alameda County.
Cedar: 2,820 structures in October 2003, 15 deaths, across 273,246 acres in San Diego County.
North Complex: 2,352 structures in August, 2020, 15 deaths, across 318,935 acres in Butte and Plumas counties.
Valley: 1,955 structures in September 2015, 4 deaths, across 76,067 acres in Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties.
Witch: 1,650 structures in October 2007, 2 deaths, across 197,990 acres in San Diego County.
Woolsey: 1,643 structures in November 2018, 3 deaths, across 96,949 acres in Ventura County.
Carr: 1,614 structures in July 2018, 8 deaths, across 229,651 acres in Shasta and Trinity counties.
Glass: 1,520 structures in September 2020, no deaths, across 67,484 acres in Napa and Sonoma County counties.
LNU Lightning Complex: 1,491 structures in August 2020, 6 deaths, across 363,220 acres in Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Yolo, Lake, and Colusa counties.
CZU Lightning Complex: 1,490 structures in August 2020, one death, across 86,509 acres in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
Nuns: 1,355 structures in October 2017, 3 deaths, across 54,382 acres in Sonoma County.
Dixie: 1,311 structures in July 2021, one death, across 963,309 acres in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, and Tehama counties.
Thomas: 1,063 structures in December 2017, 2 deaths, across 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Caldor: 1,003 structures in September 2021, one death, across 221,774 acres in Alpine, Amador, and El Dorado counties.
Old: 1,003 structures in October 2003, 6 deaths, across 91,281 acres in San Bernardino County.
Jones: 954 structures in October 1999, one death, across 26,200 acres in Shasta County.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com