It Literally Looks Like a Nuke Went Off – We Are Witnessing the Costliest Fire Disaster in U.S. History by a Very Wide Margin

(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Some of the images of the destruction that has taken place in the Los Angeles area are hard to believe.  We are being told that approximately “75% of Pacific Palisades has been completely leveled by fires”, and the use of the phrase “completely leveled” is not an exaggeration at all.

It literally looks like a nuke went off and wiped out everything.  There have been plenty of fire disasters in California before, but never anything like this.  At this point, Accuweather is projecting that total economic losses will be “between $52 billion and $57 billion”…

The blazes — which are ripping through some of the nation’s priciest real estate — are likely to cause between $52 billion and $57 billion in damages and economic loss, according to a preliminary AccuWeather estimate.

That may sound like a very high estimate, but JPMorgan analyst Jimmy Bhullar came up with a very similar figure…

A separate estimate from JPMorgan analyst Jimmy Bhullar also pegged total economic losses from the LA fires at close to $50 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. That total includes insured losses at more than $20 billion and “even more if the fires are not controlled,” Bhullar said.

Those losses would make the Los Angeles-area infernos the costliest wildfires in U.S. history.

Previously, the Camp Fire in 2018 was the most destructive wildfire in history — causing an estimated $12.5 billion in insured losses, WSJ said.

Read that last sentence again.

Prior to 2025, the costliest fire disaster in U.S. history caused 12.5 billion dollars in insured losses.

This disaster is going to beat that by a very wide margin.

One of the reasons why this disaster is going to be so costly is because homes are being destroyed in an area where home values are extremely high…

Some of the worst damage is located in Santa Monica and Malibu, where median home values are over $2 million, AccuWeather said.

On Thursday, multiple fires continued to spread all around Los Angeles.

Sadly, it was being reported that the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire were still zero percent contained…

Firefighters on Thursday continued to battle multiple deadly wildfires that erupted across Los Angeles, creating an apocalyptic scene as residents fled the raging infernos.

At least five fires were active in Los Angeles County, scorching more than 40 square miles across the region, according to Cal Fire. The Palisades Fire in the coastal Pacific Palisades community and the Eaton Fire, located east in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, remained the largest blazes with 0% containment.

Why aren’t they able to contain these fires?

So far, over 2,000 structures have been destroyed, and more are catching fire with each passing hour…

Out-of-control blazes are still raging in Los Angeles, with firefighters unable to contain one of Southern California’s worst natural disasters in history.

Roughly 30,000 acres were on fire, and at least five people were dead early Thursday, with more than 180,000 residents ordered to evacuate, and more than 425,000 without power. More than 2,000 structures have been lost in the Pacific Palisades fire and in the Eaton fire in and around Altadena, with critical fire weather forecast through Friday night, local officials said. Forecasters said no rain is expected over the next week.

This disaster is far from over.

And what is making things even worse is that arsonists have apparently been trying to start additional fires.

In fact, podcaster Andrew D. Huberman says that he literally witnessed this happening…

Huberman, who has 5.2 million subscribers to his health podcast Huberman Lab, took to social media platform X to share the footage, urging people to ‘call in any activity’.

He wrote: ‘People are lighting fires in otherwise non-burning urban areas of LA.

‘Saw this happen first hand in Santa Monica. Called it in & fire dept & police responded.

‘Stay safe and call in any activity ASAP. We don’t need more flames out here.’

Why would anyone do such a thing?

Have they gone completely and utterly insane?

There should be absolutely no tolerance for anyone that is attempting to set new fires in the middle of a major fire emergency such as this.

In areas where fire has already come and gone, many are discovering that there is nothing left of their homes except for a pile of ash…

Some residents ventured back to areas the fire had already swept through, where brick chimneys were left looming over charred waste and burnt-out vehicles. The remnants of a tattered and scorched American flag flapped from a pole.

“I had just come from my family home where my mother lives that was burned to a crisp … And then I came up to my home and – same thing. It’s completely dust,” said Oliver Allnatt, 36, wearing ski goggles and a filtered face mask as he took pictures of the ruins. “Basically just a chimney stack and a pile of ash. I mean, it’s something out of a movie.”

Many of these homeowners will not be able to rebuild because they had their insurance policies canceled.

One woman that was interviewed by KABC was trying to ward off the fires with a garden hose because the home where her parents have lived for more than 70 years was no longer covered by fire insurance…

Lynne Levin-Guzman stood in the front yard of her 90-year-old parents’ home in Los Angeles County, California, trying to protect it with a garden hose — because their insurance company no longer would.

“I know I’m not supposed to be here, but this is my parents’ home and they just lost — they got canceled from their fire insurance. So they’re dealing with this,” she told CNN affiliate KABC. “They’ve lived in this house for 75 years and they’ve had the same insurance and these insurance people decided to cancel their fire insurance.”

“And they wonder why people leave California,” she added.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

As I discussed yesterday, I simply do not understand why anyone would still want to live in California at this stage.

Yes, there are good paying jobs in the state and the weather is nice.  But in recent years California has been hit by historic disaster after historic disaster.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

A lot more chaos is on the way, and natural disasters will continue to be a major theme throughout the rest of 2025.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.