The Conditions That Led to the ‘Unprecedented’ Los Angeles County Fires

The devastating Los Angeles fires have taken 10 lives, officials said on Thursday night, though they warned that the death toll may rise in the coming days, as first responders could not give a full assessment of the loss due to dangerous fire conditions.

The Palisades Fire—the largest of at least five fires currently impacting Los Angeles County—remains rampant, engulfing more than 20,000 acres as of Friday morning. The fire is only 8% contained so far and more than 13,000 structures are threatened. The newer Kenneth Fire, which started on Thursday afternoon, is at 1,000 acres and is 35% contained. Meanwhile, the Eaton Fire is at 13,000 acres, with 3% containment, and the Lidia Fire is at 75% containment inside 395 acres. The Hurst Fire is at least 771 acres and 37% contained.

“This is a tragic time in our history,” said Los Angeles County Police Department Sheriff Jim McDonnell during a press briefing on Wednesday. “These are…unprecedented conditions, but also unpredictable as the fire continues to spread and pop up in different locations, none of us know where the next one is going to be.”

The devastating nature of the fires is in part due to climate change, experts say, which has exacerbated the size, intensity, and damage caused by the wildfires in recent years. The southwestern U.S. is undergoing the driest 22-year period in the last 1,200 years. 

As temperatures have risen, so has the aridity, or dryness of the vegetation, which proved disastrous when coupled with the gusty Santa Ana winds. “The hot and dry Santa Ana winds that often affect the southern California region and fuel large wildfires such as the ongoing one, only make things worse,” said Imperial College London Professor Apostolos Voulgarakis in a statement. “Research has shown that the occurrence of Santa Ana winds in the autumn are also likely to get worse with climate change, leading to even drier vegetation, fast fire spread and more intense late-season wildfires.”

The fire’s scope  

At least 130,000 locals are under mandatory evacuation as active fires continue to spread. However, the earlier Sunset, Woodley, Tyler, and Olivas fires have been contained.

The biggest threat to Los Angeles remains the strong winds, which reduced in speed early Thursday morning, allowing firefighters to better take control of the fires. Stronger winds, however, returned later in the day.

Despite broad efforts to take control of the fires, officials have expressed their distress about their magnitude. “We're facing a historic natural disaster,” said L.A. County Office of Emergency Management Director Kevin McGowan during Wednesday’s press conference. “This is not a normal red flag.”

During the press conference, local leaders addressed concerns about fire hydrants that reportedly went dry in the county as firefighters sought to extinguish flames. Local media had reported on the incidents, though discussions about the topic also circulated on social media platforms including X. L.A. Department of Water and Power CEO Janisse Quiñones said that in Palisades, the three tanks of water that hold about a million gallons each and supply the region had run out. “Because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line and so much water was being used before it could get to the tanks, we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough,” she said at the press briefing.

As a result of the pushes to the county’s water system, water quality has decreased. Boil water notices have been issued to those in the Pacific Palisades.

Power outages have also been affecting much of Southern California. More than 236,000 California customers were out of electricity as of Friday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has deployed thousands of firefighters to the region since declaring a State of emergency on Tuesday night.

Read More: How to Help Victims of the Los Angeles Wildfires

Climate impact

A combination of factors compounded the impact and scope of the Los Angeles fires. The L.A. region has received little rain this year—the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map, released last week, reported parts of Southern California as “abnormally dry”—coupled with warmer than usual temperatures. In addition, the area was battling a windstorm the day the fires were reported.

“[The] National Weather Service reported wind gusts of close to 100 miles an hour in a region that had received close to zero precipitation with a season of very warm conditions,” says Stanford Professor Noah Diffenbaugh. “That is a very high-risk situation. And it was forecast in advance.”

The fires are occurring outside of the state’s wildfire season, which typically runs from May through late October or November in the Southern California region, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association.

Warmer temperatures and extended droughts could mean that wildfires might continue to occur outside of their usual season. “Because of the warming trend of climate change, the vegetation is a little bit drier and the fire season is a little bit later,” says Crystal Raymond, deputy director of the Western Fire and Forest Resilience Collaborative at the University of Washington. “You get more of the chance for this dry season to then overlap with the Santa Ana wind season.”

It’s a phenomenon that could become more common due to climate change, says Raymond. “Generally throughout the West, we expect wildfires to become more frequent, larger, and happen in a longer fire season.”

Raymond says that wildfires will continue to cause devastation as long as areas that were previously natural vegetation are commercially developed, a process known as wildland-urban interface. “There’s a lack of awareness about how much most people living in the West are living in areas that are prone to wildfire,” she says. 

Practices like controlled burns or vegetation management can help manage fire risks, and experts say that communities should have evacuation plans and plan any development with wildfires in mind. But wildfires have long been a part of California’s ecosystem, and will continue to be so. 

“There have been wildfires in California much longer than there have been cities,” says Diffenbaugh. “The key question for living with wildfire is how we as humans manage the risks.”