Yesterday California Gov. Gray Davis added Riverside County to four others he has proclaimed in a state of emergency. As he did for Los Angeles, San Bernardino San Diego and Ventura counties, Mr. Davis asked for a disaster declaration from federal authorities for Riverside.

Dave Dasgupta, a spokesperson for Jersey City, N.J.?based Insurance Services Office said the Cedar Fire near San Diego had become "the largest fire in California history" by encompassing 233,000 acres.

He said ISO's Property Claim Services unit has declared that fire, which has burned 1,000 structures, a catastrophe.

PCS defines a catastrophe as an event within a particular territory that causes $25 million or more in insured property losses and affects a significant number of property-casualty policyholders and insurers.

Dallas Jones, director of the state's Office of Emergency Services said today that the current estimate of the cost of destruction is $2 billion, which includes the labor costs involved with an army of 12,000 firefighters.

According to a yardstick used by Gov. Davis in communications with federal officials, the insured loss is generally about half of the total damage cost.

Officials at a news conference with Mr. Jones said that 50,000 persons had been evacuated from fire areas. The number of listed fatalities remained today at 16.

The blazes in the five Southern California counties encompass more than 800 square miles