Firefighters trying to contain blazes raging in Southern California won't get much relief from the weather this weekend, according to Bloomberg News.
Dry and warm Santa Ana winds blowing in from the desert are forecast to gust between 30 to 50 miles (48 to 80 kilometers) per hour through Sunday, the National Weather Service said.
Red flag warnings — meaning a heightened risk of wildfires — have been posted for much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Sunday, according to the weather service.
|'Very volatile situation'
Fires fanned by strong winds have charred hundreds of thousands of acres, burned hundreds of homes, shut major freeways and closed schools throughout Southern California this week. Lower winds on Friday have allowed crews to make progress in containing some of the conflagrations, said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“It's a very volatile situation,” McLean said in a phone interview. “When you get high winds and low humidity, those things make a big difference in how a fire reacts.”
|86,000+ homes at risk near Los Angeles
According to CoreLogic hazard risk analysis, a total of 86,242 homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties with a combined reconstruction cost value (RCV) of $27.7 billion are at some level of risk from the Thomas, Rye and Creek Wildfires.
Of the total at-risk homes, 13,526, or 16%, with an estimated RCV of more than $5 billion are at significant risk of damage, falling in the High and Extreme risk categories, according to CoreLogic data. Although the majority of homes, 72,716, or 84%, are at Lowor Moderate risk of damage, wildfire can easily expand to adjacent properties and cause significant damage even if a property is not considered high risk in its own right.
The reconstruction cost values represent estimates to rebuild the home, taking into account geography, labor and materials, and are based on 100%, or total, destruction. Depending on the size of the wildfire, there can easily be less than 100% damage to the home, which would result in a lower realized reconstruction cost. As such, this analysis represents the total and maximum risk from this event, not the predicted loss.
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