The recent wildfires in Los Angeles, fueled by Santa Ana winds and drought-stricken vegetation, have left behind a trail of destruction that will be felt for years to come. Despite heroic efforts, these fires overwhelmed firefighters with their speed and intensity, becoming the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. While some have critiqued aspects of the response, the overarching lesson is clear: we need a new and improved playbook to combat the increasingly severe wildfires of our time. To make that point obvious, we’ll look at:
- The magnitude of the disaster
- Why California represents a benchmark in wildfire readiness
- How the fires managed to overwhelm even the best-prepared firefighters
- How the factors that made these fires so disastrous are coming together more often
- Two suggestions for moving beyond the current wildfire playbook
A disaster of unprecedented magnitude
The fires around Los Angeles spread at an incredible pace from the very beginning; entire neighborhoods disappeared in hours.
The Palisades Fire was the first to break out, going from about 20 acres to nearly 200 acres in only 20 minutes. Within 24 hours, flames had engulfed more than 15,000 acres and left the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in ruins. The Eaton Fire was next, growing to nearly 1,000 acres within six hours. By the following night, it had grown 10x to cover more than 10,000 acres.
Making matters worse, the Santa Ana winds carried embers miles ahead of the fire front. Within two days, the single Palisades Fire had grown into a complex of six different fires. Firefighters on the ground found themselves overwhelmed as new blazes ignited faster than they could respond.
The fires have so far burned over 51,000 acres, destroyed more than 15,000 structures, and claimed at least 28 lives. By the time it is all over, total damage and economic losses are estimated to reach somewhere between $250 and $275 billion, cementing the place of this fire complex as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
California’s fire preparedness: A benchmark tested by extremes
California has long been regarded as a leader in wildfire preparedness. The state has one of the strictest fire building codes in the country, and that code has proven itself to be effective. It is home to CAL FIRE, one of the best-trained firefighting forces in the world with a budget of nearly $4 billion at its disposal. This force of 12,000 has access to cutting-edge tools like artificial intelligence and the largest civil aerial firefighting fleet in the world,
And, when the National Weather Service issued red flag warnings in the hours leading up to the Los Angeles fires, city, county, and federal agencies responded by strategically pre-deploying units into the field, including firefighters, trucks, bulldozers, helicopters, and airplanes. Despite all these preparations, the complex of Los Angeles fires overwhelmed crews to become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
We're doing the very best we can...The L.A. County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four.
Anthony Marrone | Los Angeles County Fire Chief
Of course, no response is ever perfect, and some media reports have identified alleged gaps in this one. For example, there have been reports that some fire hydrants at higher elevations lost pressure after the storage tanks that fed them ran dry. Even in the so-called failures, there has been evidence that local infrastructure was simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the fires.
We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design.
Marty Adams | Former general manager and chief engineer, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The recipe for L.A.’s disaster
In one sense, the ingredients for this disaster started coming together about a year ago. In another, the conditions have been decades in the making.
EXTREME WEATHER
It was about a year ago that atmospheric rivers dumped torrential rains that spurred an explosion of vegetation in southern California. When the summer heat and drought arrived, that lush growth turned dry and brittle, leaving an abundance of fuel for any fire that might erupt.
Then, in January, the Santa Ana winds delivered the final blow with dry, scorching gusts that approached 100 miles per hour. The winds turned a bad situation into what would quickly become an unmanageable catastrophe.
THE EXPANDING WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE
In another sense, the conditions for this disaster have been decades in the making as more homes have been built in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where development meets undeveloped land.
The WUI has long been ground zero for wildfire devastation. More than 80% of structures destroyed by wildfire between 1985 and 2013 were located in the WUI. That dangerous zone includes communities like Pacific Palisades and Altadena, which took the brunt of damage from the Los Angeles fires.
Despite these risks, many potential homebuyers tend to be attracted by the beauty and affordability of housing in the WUI. And many communities are keen to attract those homebuyers. As a result, the WUI has continued to expand. Although the WUI only accounts for about 7% of California’s land, it accounted for about 45% of the state’s new homes between 1990 and 2020.
Why the L.A. fires aren’t just a problem for L.A.
The Los Angeles fires weren’t a fluke; they’re an indicator of a larger trend.
In a report from World Weather Attribution, a group of 32 international researchers used its peer-reviewed rapid assessment method to determine how the probability of extreme fire weather conditions has changed over time in California.
- The strong dry winds that fanned the flames are now 35% more likely than they would have been in the 1800s.
- Prolonged dry seasons, like the one leading up to these fires, are about 80% more likely.
- California's dry season has increased by about 23 days, increasing the likelihood that the dry season will overlap with Santa Ana winds.
But the increasing danger isn't confined to California. The same ingredients that devastated Los Angeles are coming together with increasing frequency to produce disastrous consequences for other communities throughout the United States and beyond. Jasper, Lahaina, and Paradise are just a few of the grim reminders, but there are others.
The growing danger is coming from two directions:
First, the weather conditions for extreme wildfires are becoming more common. We’re seeing more whiplash weather with erratic swings between extreme rainfall and extreme drought—the ideal weather pattern for producing an abundance of fuel. In addition, recent studies suggest that the fastest jet stream winds will continue to speed up by about 2% for every degree Celsius the world warms.
Secondly, we continue to increase our exposure to wildfire risk. Although understandable, communities continue to push into areas adjacent to wildlands and build more homes in the high-risk WUI. From 1990 to 2020, the WUI in the United States grew by 179,000 km2 (an area equivalent to the state of Washington), and the number of homes in the WUI increased by 47%. Although growth slowed after 2010, 2.6 million new homes were still added to the WUI from 2010-2020.
In short, it’s not just California that needs to learn from what happened in Los Angeles; it’s the entire nation…and beyond.
Beyond the current wildfire playbook: From response to prevention
If you take anything from our discussion so far, it should be these two thoughts: (1) When fire conditions are as ripe as they were on January 7, there is only so much that firefighters can do to control them. (2) When the benchmark of wildfire playbooks is no longer enough to keep our communities safe, we need to look beyond the playbook.
This fire was so intense. There isn't a fire department in the world that could have gotten in front of this.
Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell | Head of U.S. Fire Administration
The traditional wildfire playbook has disproportionately emphasized how we respond to wildfires. However, the Los Angeles fires serve as a stark reminder that our ability to get a fire under control depends not only on the quality of the response but also on outside factors like weather conditions and available fuel. What’s more, those external factors can sometimes dwarf the impact of our response. That’s why we need to evolve beyond the traditional playbook and place greater emphasis on preventative efforts that try to swing those external conditions in our favor before a wildfire can ever take hold.
But, what might improved prevention look like?
IMPROVING FUEL MANAGEMENT IN THE WUI
One area where we collectively need to improve is fuel management.
Let’s be clear, the fuel models that the United States uses to predict the spread of wildfire are among the best in the world. At the time they were developed, they constituted a major improvement over previous models, vastly improving our understanding of how fires spread in wildland areas.
But those same models are now two decades old. And, like all models, they have their limitations.
One particularly relevant limitation is that the models were never really designed to address the spread of fire in developed areas. In fact, they classify developed areas as non-burnable; yet, as we’ve seen in communities like Lahaina, Jasper, Paradise, and now in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, developed areas are most definitely burnable under the right circumstances.
As fires in the WUI become more common and more destructive, it’s becoming clear that we need to improve our skill at predicting wildfire spread in developed areas. Such predictions could enable firefighters to deploy resources more effectively. They could equip land managers to better prioritize which areas most need fuel thinning. And, they could help city planners and insurance companies more accurately assess the amount of wildfire risk facing various structures.
Can we do better? That remains to be seen. Important work is being done in this area, but we have not yet seen a broad consensus emerge around a single model that could reliably and accurately predict the spread of fire in developed areas.
MORE GRANULAR MODELING OF SANTA ANA WINDS
In addition to better understanding the fuels that feed our fires, we need to improve our understanding of the winds that fan them. For example, the Santa Ana winds are one of fire’s fiercest allies:
- These hot, dry winds tend to reduce humidity in the atmosphere and dry out vegetation, thereby creating ideal conditions for a fire to erupt.
- They can hasten the spread of fire, both over ground and via windblown embers.
Unfortunately, the Santa Ana winds are also highly unpredictable and sporadic. Their variability—howling through one canyon while leaving another untouched—complicates every firefighting effort. They create hyper-localized conditions that can mean the difference between containment and catastrophe.
Expanding weather station coverage in these regions is essential. More granular data would enable better wind mapping and prediction, giving fire crews the edge they need to anticipate where the danger is going, which could ultimately improve response times and evacuation plans.
Building resilience in an era of uncertainty
The Los Angeles fires were more than a disaster; they were a warning. Traditional strategies simply aren’t keeping pace with the escalating scale and frequency of wildfires. To adapt, we must:
- Embrace emerging technologies that redefine how we predict and manage fire behavior.
- Invest in next-generation infrastructure—fuel mapping systems, weather monitoring networks, and more—needed to confront these challenges head-on.
- Rethink urban planning to reduce the vulnerability of communities at the WUI.
The stakes are high. Lives, homes, ecosystems, and billions of dollars hang in the balance. It’s time to write a new playbook—one built for a future defined by resilience in the face of fire.