Image Credit: DAVID SWANSON / Contributor / Getty Images 
Firefighters are battling another large wildfire in southern California.
The Canyon Fire is burning across an area that straddles Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
On Friday afternoon, the fire had spread to 5,370 acres and was about 25% contained.
Around 400 fire personnel have been battling the blaze.
The fire broke out on Thursday at about 1.30 pm local time in a remote area east of Lake Piru. The flames were fanned by high winds and spread rapidly.
Multiple evacuation orders have now been issued for over 4,000 local residents, and a further 12,000 remain under an evacuation warning.
So far, only one building has been destroyed and nobody is reported injured.
The Gifford Fire in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties continued to spread this week, reaching a total area of nearly 100,000 acres, with about 15% containment on Friday afternoon. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The massive wildfires earlier this year broke the record for the costliest insured fire losses of all time, breaking $40 billion.
According to a report by insurance firm Gallagher Re, “The insured losses from January’s Los Angeles wildfires are anticipated to reach USD40 billion, making it the costliest series of wildfire events for the insurance sector to date. From an insurance claims perspective, the losses are comparable to a so-called ‘peak peril’ event, like a hurricane. Combined losses from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, for instance, were around USD44 billion.”
The San Francisco Chronicle claims the total losses of the Palisades and Eaton fire were $65 billion.
The report by Gallagher Re mentions climate change and urban encroachment on wild areas as among the principal causes of the devastating fires, but says nothing about government failures, which have been widely cited as exacerbating the fires and allowing them to rage out of control.
Mayor Karen Bass has faced probing questions about her role in the wildfires.
Bass cut $20 million from the city’s budget for fire services this year, and was looking to close dozens of fire stations in the week before the fires broke out.
Hundreds of thousands of people signed an online petition demanding her resignation.
It’s also claimed that Los Angeles water chief Janisse Quiñones knew the Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty when the fires broke out and that many fire hydrants in the city were broken.
State Governor Gavin Newsom has also come in for harsh criticism, after he slashed the state firefighting budget by $100 million just months before the wildfires.
The cuts included $28 million from state conservancies that increase resilience to wildfires; $12 million from a project to protect homes from wildfires; $8 million from wildfire monitoring and research; $4 million from a forest legacy program that encourages landowners to protect their properties; and $5 million from programs for vegetation management.
