Bank branches close as wildfires spread across Los Angeles

As fast-moving wildfires raged across Los Angeles County, some banks in the area were forced to close their doors out of concern for their customers and employees.

Fires have been spreading across the L.A. metropolitan region since Tuesday morning, burning through thousands of acres and prompting massive evacuation orders. On Wednesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave banks that are affected by the unsafe conditions permission to temporarily close.

JPMorgan Chase , the nation’s largest bank by assets and the biggest deposit-holder in the L.A. metro area, confirmed that it was shutting branches in the disaster’s path. The exact number of closures was not immediately clear. As of late June 2024, JPMorgan operated about 335 branches in the metro region, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“We’re directly communicating with our people and providing employee assistance,” a company spokesperson said in an email. “We have temporarily closed branches in impacted areas.”

Citigroup , which has about 124 branches in the area, had closed about 12 offices as of midday Wednesday, affecting about 70 employees, a company spokesperson told American Banker. All of the closures were due to power loss or evacuation orders, not damage from the fires, the spokesperson said.

“The safety of our employees and customers is our top priority,” the company said in a statement. “We are actively communicating with Los Angeles-area colleagues to assess their needs and how we can support them.”

U.S. Bancorp and its 4,000 area employees are following all evacuation orders and will continue to do so, a company spokesperson told American Banker. The Minneapolis-based company, which expanded its presence in Southern California with the 2023 acquisition of MUFG Union Bank, operates about 200 branches across the Los Angeles, Orange County and Long Beach area.

The OCC said the shuttered offices “should make every effort to reopen” as soon as possible.

The OCC regularly allows banks to close during disasters. Before the California fires, the most recent permission came in early October when Hurricane Milton hit Florida. About two weeks prior to that, the regulator approved closures when Hurricane Helene struck multiple states, including Florida and North Carolina.

Fire officials in California say they are grappling with several fires at once, fueled by dry conditions and unusually strong winds. The largest of those blazes, the Palisades Fire, has burned through nearly 3,000 acres, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Bloomberg reported the most destructive windstorm to strike the Los Angeles area in 14 years is fanning the wildfires, with gusts expected to persist for at least another two days. Hurricane-force winds have torn through the region, pushing flames through high-priced neighborhoods and hampering efforts of firefighters.

As of Wednesday afternoon, at least two people had died, and more than 70,000 people had been ordered to evacuate, according to the Associated Press.

The Palisades fire in particular was proving difficult to control, Los Angeles Fire Department fire captain Erik Scott said in a video update posted to the social platform X on Wednesday. The fire was spreading in multiple directions but was growing fastest along its western edge toward Malibu, Bloomberg reported.