The California Fire Department website shows statistics on wildfires and the damages from them for the period 2013–2024. For each of these 12 years, it gives four annual values: the number of wildfires, acres burnt, confirmed loss of life, and structures destroyed.
I used this data to calculate one value for each year, indicating the intensity and damage from the fires.
The variation is very large. The year with the most damage was 2018, and the damage was 11.2 times that of 2019. The second and third most damaging years were 2020 and 2018, respectively. The damages before 2017 and after 2021 were low, between 1.1 and 2.4.
Table 1. Calculated Annual Damage & Intensity of California Fires, 2013-2024
| Year | D&I |
| 2013 | 1.6 |
| 2014 | 1.3 |
| 2015 | 2.4 |
| 2016 | 1.5 |
| 2017 | 6.5 |
| 2018 | 11.2 |
| 2019 | 1.0 |
| 2020 | 8.1 |
| 2021 | 3.6 |
| 2022 | 1.5 |
| 2023 | 1.1 |
| 2024 | 2.0 |
Fig. 1.Calculated Annual Damage & Intensity of California Fires, 2013-2024
Remarks
There was no data in the same format prior to 2013. Detailed statistics from the Red Book, broken in annual volumes, was not used.
The Worksheet is enclosed.