California’s wildfire history of thousands of fires causing billions of dollars in destruction every year is mostly due to many small-scale, individual fires. Yet, larger fires are becoming more common. This list of California wildfires highlights the largest wildfires in California history, which resulted in extreme levels of destruction. While lightning strikes sparked some of them, the overwhelming majority were caused by human activity.
| Year | Number of Wildfires | Acres Burned |
| 1987 | 13,476 | 873,000 |
| 1988 | 13,290 | 345,000 |
| 1989 | 10,024 | 173,400 |
| 1990 | 10,548 | 365,200 |
| 1991 | 9,609 | 44,200 |
| 1992 | 12,047 | 282,745 |
| 1993 | 8,689 | 309,779 |
| 1994 | 10,269 | 526,219 |
| 1995 | 8,492 | 209,815 |
| 1996 | 10,610 | 752,372 |
| 1997 | 9,502 | 283,885 |
| 1998 | 7,572 | 215,412 |
| 1999 | 11,125 | 1,172,850 |
| 2000 | 7,622 | 295,026 |
| 2001 | 9,458 | 329,126 |
| 2002 | 8,328 | 969,890 |
| 2003 | 9,116 | 1,020,460 |
| 2004 | 8,415 | 264,988 |
| 2005 | 7,162 | 222,538 |
| 2006 | 8,202 | 736,022 |
| 2007 | 9,093 | 1,520,362 |
| 2008 | 6,255 | 1,593,690 |
| 2009 | 9,159 | 422,147 |
| 2010 | 6,554 | 109,529 |
| 2011 | 7,989 | 168,545 |
| 2012 | 7,950 | 869,599 |
| 2013 | 9,907 | 601,635 |
| 2014 | 7,865 | 625,540 |
| 2015 | 8,745 | 893,362 |
| 2016 | 6,986 | 669,534 |
| 2017 | 9,560 | 1,548,429 |
| 2018 | 8,527 | 1,975,086 |
| 2019 | 7,860 | 259,823 |
| 2020 | 9,639 | 4,397,809 |
| 2021 | 8,835 | 2,568,948 |
| 2022 | 7,490 | 362,455 |
| 2023 | 7,127 | 324,917 |
Source: CAL FIRE
Every home lost may have been due to ember ignition
A study of 2007 Witch and Guejito fires in San Diego indicates that potentially every home lost in the fire was impacted by some form of ember ignition. This was 74 homes in total. Conservatively, ember ignitions accounted for 55 out of the 74 homes destroyed. Embers were involved either by igniting vegetation that in turn ignited the structure or by directly igniting a home.
California does have an insurance program under the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, established in the 1960s, which provides fire insurance coverage for high-risk properties. The coverage is basic and funded by the insurance companies.
California is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country. Experts have blamed geographic isolation and lack of market competition in the area for its high health care costs.
Today, at the Governor’s request for more federal assistance, the President authorized increasing federal assistance to cover 100% of California’s fire management and debris removal costs for 180 days, up from the traditional 75%.
LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn. The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn).
New insurance regulations just announced
To give California homeowners in high-risk areas an alternative to California FAIR, the California Department of Insurance just announced new regulations two weeks ago designed to get private insurers to start writing policies in fire-prone parts of the state. The policy is designed to get private insurers to take back much of the coverage now handled by California FAIR.
The rules will require that insurers need to write policies in fire-prone areas equal to at least 85% of their market share throughout the state.
But the policy also gives insurers one thing they’ve been seeking for years: the ability to factor in the cost of reinsurance policies, which are policies they buy from other firms to spread their risk, as part of their rate calculations. California has been the only state that didn’t allow the cost of reinsurance to be part of the rate calculations. Reinsurance has been rising due to both the risks posed by climate change and the increasing cost of claims due to inflation raising the price of labor, lumber and other raw materials.
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