Fire following earthquake is a significant problem in California. This note examines the potential losses arising from fire following earthquake for a hypothetical M7.8 earthquake occurring at 10am on 13 November 2008 on the Southern segment of the San Andreas Fault, resulting in MMI VI-VIII in the Los Angeles basin and accompanied by breezy, low humidity conditions. Fire following earthquake is a highly non-linear process, modeling of which does not have great precision and is such that in many cases the only clear result is differentiation between situations of a few small fires, versus major conflagration. For the M7.8 scenario, it is estimated that approximately 1,600 ignitions will occur requiring the response of a fire engine. In about 1,200 of these fires the first responding engine will not be able to adequately contain the fire, such that one or several conflagrations destroying several city blocks will occur in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Of more concern however, are portions of Orange County and especially the central Los Angeles basin, where the dozens to hundreds of large fires are likely to merge into dozens of conflagrations destroying tens of city blocks, and several of these merge into one or several super conflagrations destroying hundreds of city blocks. Under the assumed scenario conditions, a preliminary estimate is that the approximately 1,200 large fires will result in an ultimate burnt area of approximately 200 million sq. ft. of residential and commercial building floor area, equivalent to 133,000 single family dwellings. Directly attributable to these fires following the earthquake will be the loss of hundreds to perhaps a thousand lives, and an economic loss of forty to perhaps as much as one hundred billion dollars, This loss is virtually fully insured and could result in distortions in the US and global insurance industry. Other economic impacts include the loss of perhaps a billion dollars in local tax revenues. A number of opportunities exist for mitigating this problem, including construction of a seismically reliable basin-wide saltwater pumping system, and the mandatory use of automated gas shut-off valves, or seismic shut-off gas meters, in densely built areas.