LA fires are a US$9bil threat to power firms

Devastating effect: Firefighters monitor as the Palisades fire grows near the a neighbourhood in California. Across the city, at least 16 people have died as multiple fires have ripped through residential areas. — AFP

IT is a measure of California’s range of natural dangers that the state’s Wildfire Fund is administered by the California Earthquake Authority.

The cost of making a state prone to drought, flood, fire and tremors not merely viable but desirable, and who pays, have been controversial constants all the way back to Los Angeles’ (LA) so-called “water wars” a century ago.