The BBC is helpfully keeping a running tally of the number of celebrities whose homes have burned down.
This is the first time in recorded history that wildfires of this scale have occurred in California in January, according to an expert quoted in the New Scientist:
"While Santa Ana fires are nothing new in southern California, this type of explosive fire event has never happened in January before, and it's only happened once in December," says Crystal Kolden at the University of California, Merced.There has been no official word on what started the fires as yet, although officials from the California Fire Service claimed that 95% of wildfires in California are started by humans.
Comment: Related: Greece hit by Storm Elena: Torrential rainfall causes flooding