Well before Los Angeles firefighters had even a modicum of control over the devastating fires in January 2025, the search for answers had begun.
The relationship between humans and the natural environment is complex. Climate change is real, but it is not a simple explanation for the catastrophic effects of every weather-related event that happens.
More realistically, climate change contributes to society's continuing and increasing difficulty in living in harmony with its natural environment.
In a recent analysis, a group of UCLA climate scientists concluded that global warming was not the sole or leading cause of the Los Angeles fires: “[C]limate change may be linked to roughly a quarter of the extreme fuel moisture deficit when the fires began” but “the fires would still have been extreme without climate change, but probably somewhat smaller and less intense.”
Common Factors in the 2025 Wildfires
On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, two different fires erupted in the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area.
In the morning, a brush fire started on the slopes of coastal sage scrub just north of Santa Monica in an area known as the Pacific Palisades. Later that evening, another brush fire erupted in a chaparral (a type of scrubland vegetation) canyon north of Pasadena in the community of Altadena. Both fires escalated quickly, soon turning deadly and massively destructive.
Although they were separated by nearly 50 miles and never connected, the two fires shared some striking similarities.
First, both fires started in the dry brush of the foothills surrounding Los Angeles. Southern California often suffers from long periods of drought and has a relatively mild, arid climate. In the last two rainy seasons, however, the region experienced higher-than-normal rainfall, leading to the generous growth of shrubs and weedy grasses.
The summer of 2024 was dry and extremely hot and had no significant rainfall since the previous spring. This caused the extra growth from the two previous winters to dry out.
The Santa Ana winds in January 2025 were different. … Gusts were recorded up to 100 miles an hour, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.
Second, against this backdrop of excessive amounts of dry fuel came the notorious Santa Ana winds. While Southern California winds often blow easterly from the Pacific Ocean, bringing cool, moist air inland, the Santa Anas blow in the opposite direction. They usually originate in the fall in the high desert mountains, carrying dry, warm air toward the ocean, and down and west into the lowlands.
The Santa Ana winds in January 2025 were different. They came much later than normal and blew with a force rarely seen before. They surged out of the east but swirled in all different directions. Gusts were recorded up to 100 miles an hour, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.
These circumstances set the stage for the disaster that ensued. Regardless of what may have caused the fires initially, the area was poised to burn and burn quickly once the fires began. The Palisades Fire grew to over 200 acres in less than two hours. Similarly, the Eaton Fire expanded five times in size in just four hours.
California’s Fire-Prone Landscape
Wildfires, brush and grass fires are a naturally occurring part of the ecology in California and other areas. According to the conservation organization Theodore Payne Foundation, fire has been part of the California landscape for millions of years and has played an important role in shaping the area's habitats and plant communities.
The Foundation notes that Northern California’s forested landscapes have historically experienced naturally occurring fires every 20 to 30 years, while in Southern California fires occur every 30 to 130 years.
As humans have settled in the West over the last couple of centuries, they have increasingly encountered and, at the same time, exacerbated the naturally occurring process of fire. The Western Fire Chiefs Association notes that the earliest known wildfire in California history was the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889. It burned around 300,000 acres in parts of Orange County, San Diego County, and Riverside County.
The Fire Chiefs at that time used surprisingly familiar-sounding language to describe the fire’s origins, saying it “was preceded by a severe drought coupled with high-speed winds that further dried out the land.” They add that “the conditions were just right for an intense and destructive fire,” an eerie similarity to the January 7 events.
“[M]any of the most dangerous and destructive fires in California have happened within the last several years due to climate change.”
The Western Fire Chiefs Association maintains several lists on its websites that indicate “many of the most dangerous and destructive fires in California have happened within the last several years due to climate change.” For example, of the 20 largest fires in California history, based on acreage burned, four out of the top five happened in the last five years, and all but two were in the last 25 years.
Only the list of the 20 deadliest (loss of life) fires is somewhat more evenly distributed over the last century. Although fires have become more frequent and intense, California can take some consolation in knowing that an increase in deaths has nevertheless been avoided.
However, the trend of fires is intensifying, and it is also not limited to California. According to the Insurance Information Institute, the Golden State is first on its top 10 lists, but other states come close. For example, in 2023, California had the highest number of wildfires (7,364), but Texas had almost as many, with 7,102. Similarly, for the area burned in that year, California saw the highest loss of 332,722 acres, followed closely by Alaska (314,276 acres), New Mexico (212,378 acres), Texas (210,264 acres), and Oregon (202,035 acres).
Global Warming and Other Factors
It is logical to blame climate change for the worsening trend. As weather patterns change, specific dynamics become exaggerated. Organizations and agencies dedicated to studying global climate change, such as the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, assert that “climate change has been a key factor in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the Western United States.”
Fire events have become more frequent and extreme in California, other states, and other parts of the world; hot weather, drought, dry conditions, and intense winds all contribute to the increasing intensity and occurrence of fires.
The Center points to studies that show that climate change has “doubled the forest fire area between 1984 and 2015” in the western side of the nation.
There is no disputing that fire events have become more frequent and extreme in California, other states, and other parts of the world; hot weather, drought, dry conditions, and intense winds all contribute to the increasing intensity and occurrence of fires.
However, it is essential to note that other factors also contribute to this pattern, creating the opportunity for global warming to make things worse.
David Demeritt, College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University, cautions that “focusing on climate change leads to a certain kind of paralysis because it suggests that unless we get the entire planet on board to reduce emissions to minimize climate change, there is nothing we can do.”
Understanding the causes of the Los Angeles fires requires an examination of “the immediate proximate cause (such as high ‘Santa Ana winds’ and drought)” combined with “longer-term trends in ecology, fire suppression, and land use.”
Living in High-Risk Fire Zones
Consider, for example, that many California residents choose to live in high-fire-risk zones. For over a century, housing developments have encroached onto geographic areas—forests, mountains, grasslands, chaparral, and sage scrub—where fire is part of the ecology. According to the Insurance Information Institute, in 2024, California had over a million housing units in areas at risk for extreme wildfires. Colorado is the next closest state on that list, with a little over 300,000 units.
These figures show rapid growth over the last 30 years. According to research led by Volker Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the number of homes in fire-prone parts of California grew by 40% between 1990 and 2020.
In addition to residential building patterns, for more than a century, policies have aimed to suppress naturally occurring fires. More than a century ago, conservationist and commercial timber interests convinced the federal government to adopt policies to suppress all naturally occurring forest fires. In 1935, the U.S. Forest Service established a “10 a.m. policy,” which decreed that all fires should be completely extinguished by 10 a.m. the day following when they were first reported.
Even though ranchers, farmers, timbermen, Native Americans, and others had long recognized the value of controlled burning in forested areas to keep them healthy and had incorporated the practice into the management of their own lands, the Forest Services' policies of complete fire suppression remained in effect for decades.
It was not until the 1960s that the value of natural and controlled burns was reintroduced into forest management practice.
It was not until the 1960s that the value of natural and controlled burns was reintroduced into forest management practice. By then, decades of accumulated forest fire fuel posed a new challenge. Now, when fires ignite, and eventually they do, the excessive fuel makes the burning much more intense.
Another contributing factor is invasive plant species. Specifically, European settlers drastically altered the ecology with their introduction of non-native grasses in the 1700s to feed their livestock. The weedy grasses have taken over the landscape, filling gaps in the shrubs, and introducing a highly flammable fuel. Before the introduction of these species, fire was part of the ecology, but it was much less frequent and intense.
A Way Forward
Addressing climate change is a formidable challenge that will take years and tremendous political will. Waiting for that kind of change will not be sufficient to mitigate the pattern of increasingly deadly wildfires.
But there are steps to take today.
Jack Cohen and Stephen Pyne have studied the history and behavior of wildfires: “We don’t have to solve climate change in order to solve our community wildfire risk problem,” they said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Instead, they argue for a change in society’s understanding and relationship to fire: “[A] thousand things that tweak the environment” will help prevent these eruptions.
*Rick Laezman is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California. He has a passion for energy efficiency and innovation. He has been covering renewable power and other related subjects for more than ten years.
Comments