California is now grappling with the loss of thousands of homes in the recent Camp and Woolsey wildfires. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports:
As ominous as the dark smoke that choked the Bay Area while California’s most destructive wildfire raged 200 miles north, a second tragedy now is looming over the state — the loss of thousands of homes in an already housing-starved region.
The deadly Camp Fire destroyed nearly 14,000 homes in Butte County, resulting in up to $9 billion in residential losses, according to a recent estimate by property data company CoreLogic. In a matter of hours, the fire wiped out the equivalent of nearly 18 percent of the roughly 80,000 new homes California produces in an average year.
The fire also killed at least 88 people.
As the state struggles to overcome a dire housing shortage that has driven up home and rental prices and forced many residents to move out-of-state, the property loss compounds an already critical situation. When coupled with the 1,500 structures destroyed in the Woolsey Fire in Southern California this month, the more than 5,600 structures destroyed in last year’s Tubbs Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties, and the nearly 1,100 homes destroyed last year in the Carr Fire in Shasta County, it’s devastating. And experts say Bay Area residents may feel its effects.