The disastrous fires in the Los Angeles area have now claimed at least 10 lives and damaged or destroyed 9,000 structures, according to local officials. With insured losses expected to exceed $20 billion, the wildfires are on track to be the most expensive on record.
Though many factors contributed to the devastation (such as fire hydrants without water, too few controlled burns, and insurance price controls), it was also exacerbated by land-use policies that pushed homes and residents away from the city center and closer to the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The U.S. Fire Administration defines the WUI as "the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development…where structures…intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels."
