Calif. fires seen costing hundreds of millions in damage

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The fires raging in southern California have likely caused several hundred million dollars worth of damage to home and business properties, the state's insurance commissioner told Reuters on Tuesday.

"In South Lake Tahoe where we just finished working with the victims there over the last several months, you had 254 homes destroyed at a total cost of $150 million," California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said. "Here the damage is much more widespread, more than a thousand homes destroyed so far, plus, you know, scores of businesses."

"This is just a terrible disaster; it's going to be one of the worst ever," he said adding the total destruction would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.