Hauling Away California Fire Rubble to Take a Year, Cost Billions

Cleaning up and removing debris from California’s deadly November wildfires will cost billions and likely take a year.

The Camp, Hill, and Woolsey fires destroyed 18,000 properties and could produce 6 million to 8 million tons of debris, said Brad Alexander, a spokesman for California Office of Emergency Services.

State officials don’t have an exact estimate for this cleanup, but it cost about $1.3 billion to remove 2.1 million tons of debris from the deadly October 2017 fires in Napa and Sonoma counties that destroyed more than 7,000 structures.

“We’re talking four to five times more,” Alexander told ...