On Tuesday, January 7th, in Los Angeles, our year began with wildfire like no other. I first learned about the Palisades Fire, which ignited at 10:30 a.m. in the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood, when I tuned into our local TV news broadcast at noon that day. At that moment, I was not alarmed. Like earthquakes, wildfires all year round have become a part of living in California. Besides, this was not the first wildfire in this area. On December 9th, 2024, the Franklin Fire had set more than 4,000 acres (16 square kilometers) ablaze in neighboring Malibu over nine days.

When I tuned in again that evening around eight o’clock, I was shocked to learn that a second wildfire, named the Eaton Fire, had ignited further inland in Altadena, a working-class community just north of Pasadena, where the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade had celebrated “Best Day Ever!” as its theme for 2025. Who knew then, that the best day ever would end in tragedy seven days later for thousands of Altadena residents?

Even more alarming, the Palisades Fire, driven by exceptionally fierce Santa Ana winds blowing offshore from over the San Gabriel Mountains, was spreading like the fiery breath of an angry dragon. On following the local live newsfeed, I learned that an Evacuation Order went out for an area in the neighboring city of Santa Monica on the southeastern edge of the fire. My heart fluttered. The Palisades Fire was advancing closer to our home. How could this be happening?

At the same time, the northwestern edge of the fire expanded, leading to an Evacuation Warning for Calabasas, a city in the San Fernando Valley. My firstborn who works from home for a firm in Calabasas saw no need for concern…yet.

This was not a normal firestorm. That Tuesday night, I gathered documents, medication, and other important items. For the first time since moving to California, I slept in street clothes on the couch in the living room. My winter coat and boots were within reach near the exit. I was ready to evacuate, if needed.

After a restless night, as winds battered the Camellia trees, I woke early to a smoke-laden sky that blotted out the rising sun. Trees gyrated in the wind. With toxic particulates contaminating the air, we were alerted to stay indoors and wear N95 masks when going outdoors.

I remained on alert during that week as firefighters battled to contain the flames. On Thursday, January 9th at 3:57 p.m., an Evacuation Warning sent out by the Los Angeles Emergency Alert System jolted me. Another emergency alert at 4:19 p.m., advising to disregard the Evacuation Warning intended for the Kennedy Fire only, did nothing to reduce my anxiety. Once again, Calabasas was under threat from another fire.

Over the years, we’ve experienced fierce Santa Ana winds that have knocked over my tall plants and even uprooted my croton bush. Since permanently securing these at-risk plants, I was happy to see them still standing. These winds, which usually occur from October through March, would be different, warned the National Weather Service (NWS). They predicted winds of over 60 mph (96.6 kph), with isolated gusts up to 100 mph (160.9 kph).

Based on the juxtaposition of the low and high weather systems, Los Angeles and Ventura Counties were especially at risk due to a “life-threatening and destructive windstorm.” On Monday, January 6th, California Governor Gavin Newson announced that the state was deploying resources—fire engines, hand crews, aircraft, and other additional support—to protect us here in Southern California.

The Santa Ana winds were very dry due to low humidity. Due to drought conditions in our region since April-May 2024, the soil and vegetation were also very dry. The atmospheric river system, that brought heavy rain to our region last winter, didn’t come our way this winter. One spark was enough to ignite the conflagration. The dry hurricane-force winds tossed smoldering embers as far as five miles (8 kms) away, rapidly spreading the fire.

The force of the Santa Ana winds and dense smoke made it dangerous to attack the flames from the air. Without air support, firefighters on the ground had to rely solely on water in the fire hydrants. The city’s water infrastructure, designed for routine isolated fires, was not equipped for the extreme demands of a large-scale wildfire. Blackout conditions, as a safety precaution, aggravated the situation.

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus said on Tuesday, January 7th, that Southern California is “facing a rare and dangerous juxtaposition of extreme winds and midwinter drought” that he described as “a worrying example of the state’s expanding wildfire threat as climate change worsens.

For readers interested in learning more about the unusual factors that combined to lead to this unprecedented event, I recommend that you read a preliminary analysis, “Climate Change A Factor In Unprecedented LA Fires,” published on January 13, 2025, by University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) Geography Department.

Researchers at World Weather Attribution (WWA) from Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, also came to the same conclusion. In their research review, “Climate change increased the likelihood of wildfire disaster in highly exposed Los Angeles area,” published on January 28, 2025, they concluded: “Given all these lines of evidence we have high confidence that human-induced climate change, primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels, increased the likelihood of the devastating LA fires.”

A 2021 study supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in fire weather in the western United States. Climate change creates warmer, drier conditions, leading to longer and more active fire seasons. Check out the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) for U.S. Wildfires for the years 2000 to 2024, showing total number of yearly fires and acres burned.

Based on data released by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), during the five-year period from 2020 to 2024, there have been a total of 38,931 wildfires (an average of 7,786 per year), burning a total of 8.6 million acres (an average of 1.7 million per year). The following charts are also available:

• Top 20 Largest California Wildfires
• Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires
• Top 20 Deadliest California Wildfires

The Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) notes that historical trends show that wildfires are also getting worse worldwide. During the 1990s, approximately 78,600 wildfires burned an average of 3.3 million acres per year. Since 2000, a yearly average of 70,025 wildfires have burned a yearly average of 7 million acres, more than double the average burned in the 1990s. The shift in conditions is attributed to drier fire fuel influenced by climate change, as our planet continues to warm every year.

The top largest wildfires worldwide, burning over a million acres since 2000, based on data provided by Earth.org, include:

• 2003 Siberian Taiga Fires (Russia) – 55 million acres
• 2019/2020 Australian Bushfires – 42 million acres
• 2014 Northwest Territories Fires (Canada) – 8.5 million acres
• 2004 Alaska Fire Season (USA) – 6.6 million acres
• 2010 Bolivia Forest Fires (South America) – 3.7 million acres
• 2011 Richardson Backcountry Fire (Canada) – 1.7 million acres
• 2024 Texas Wildfires (USA) – 1.1 million acres

See “CAMS Global Wildfires Review 2024: A Harsh Year for the Americas,” published by Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service on December 5, 2024.

The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) also provides historical overviews of wildfire regimes by country and sub-country for the period 2002-2019.

For climate change deniers, it’s foolish to blame the devastation of these unprecedented wildfires in Los Angeles County on poor forest and water management. Instead, they should be regarded as yet another wake-up call from Mother Nature to the growing danger we humans face as our planet continues to overheat.

We cannot continue to build our homes and communities deeper into high fire-risk areas and expect firefighters to rapidly extinguish the flames. Rebuilding in these wildland-urban interface zones, like Pacific Palisades and Altadena, without hardening one’s home and community against wildfire, would be defying the gods. This is not cheap. Perhaps, that’s why California is not listed among the 24 American states that have adopted the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC) that provides guidance for safeguarding homes and communities from wildfire.

Though our city is not located in a wildland-urban interface zone, I know now that we are not 100 percent safe from wildfire risk. Not anymore on a warming planet. The scariest part of witnessing this natural disaster, that transformed two urban communities into what now look like war zones, is the way in which we can lose everything we’ve spent our lives working to attain in one instant. Worse still is losing one’s community—churches, commercial areas, health clinics, schools, and recreation centers—where one had raised a family, created memories, and built friendships.

I leave you with the following NASA satellite image of the Altadena community on January 11, 2025.

With a climate change-denier master at the helm, may the gods help us all.