The Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Source — Apu Gomes/Getty Images.

LA Wildfires Burn Land Worth 57x NYC’s Central Park, Costing over $200B

Memories with loved ones vanished in a blink. Here’s how to prepare, respond, and rebuild.

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Introduction

Residential Homes, Houses of Worship, Commercial Offices, Parks, Playgrounds, Schools , and more turned to ash.

The LA wildfires devastated 47,894 acres of land in just 19 days, leaving behind destruction that is hard to quantify.

Here’s how the scale of the disaster compares:

1. The area burned was larger than entire cities like San Francisco (47 square miles), City of London, England (1.12 square miles), and more.
2. On average, a single-family home requires 0.2 acres of land. The wildfires destroyed enough land to accommodate 239,470 homes, essentially the size of a large city.
3. The fire scorched land greater than countries like Liechtenstein, Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, and the Marshall Islands combined.
4. It likely released carbon emissions equivalent to the annual output of millions of vehicles, highlighting the immense environmental impact.
5. Enough trees were destroyed to cover a…