In the early morning hours of Tuesday, Jan 7, fires broke out in the coastal Palisades and the hillsides of Eaton. In the days following Jan 7, other fires also sparked due to the extremely high winds pushing flames and embers into other areas: Lidia, Arche, Woodley, Sunset, Kenneth, Hurst, Lilac, Pala, Laguna, Sepulveda, Clay, Gibbel, Gilman, Border 2, Hughes and Auto. Together, these small fires torched almost twenty thousand acres. All these fires stopped spreading; however, the Palisades and Eaton fires continued to consume homes, buildings and landscapes. CNN says that as of Friday, Jan 24, both fires had destroyed over ten thousand structures, alone. California is highly prepared for these events, but, based on data from Cal Fire, this year’s fires have become the most destructive in state history. According to Cal Fire, as of Monday, Jan 27, a total of 16,255 structures, 57,528 acres burnt and 306 wildfires have sparked. By Monday, there were twenty-eight confirmed deaths: eleven in the Palisades Fire and seventeen in the Eaton Fire, but officials expect the death toll to increase. As for economic damage, JPMorgan experts anticipate over $50 billion in losses, $20 billion in the first week alone, reported NBC. The fires are ongoing, so data points change each day as new fires spark while others are put out. Please note the statistics above may not be presently accurate.
The uncontrollable fires have alerted critics to the state government’s lack of preventative actions. California has two types of firefighting measures: aggressive prevention and community alteration. The first is proactive prevention, which refers to building codes that make homes fire-resistant, the tax base for fire damage, and the California State Fire Protection Agency, or Cal Fire. The second type, changing communities and landscapes, represents hands-on action. These actions entail thinning tree cover, implementing fire-safe homes and yards and moving people out of danger zones. Danger zones are areas prone to fire, with dry vegetation and roads that are hard for fire trucks to navigate. The New York Times reported that California has recently built more homes in danger zones. However, the state has a debatably good reason: a housing crisis. The state made a tradeoff; to resolve the immediate housing crisis for the imminent risk of a fire crisis, but now residents are experiencing the repercussions. California can continue being preventative but it will only go so far if they keep building in danger zones.
The cause of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which began as bushfires, is still unknown, but the rapid growth and destruction are directly related to climate change and increasing global warming. According to the New York Times, global warming has led to higher temperatures, making it easier for fires to start and harder to put out, as well as drier vegetation, or fire fuel. In 2024, average global temperatures reached all-time highs. The temperatures this past year surpassed a 1.5℃ (2.7℉) deviation from the standard. In 2019, the UN’s Paris Agreement bound 195 countries to keep the global temperatures below 1.5℃. The temperatures averaged 1.6℃ in 2023 and are projected to maintain that average in the upcoming 2024 data. The Paris Agreement states that should the UN fail to accomplish its original goal, the countries must work to keep the temperatures well below 2℃. The New York Times reports that to bring the temperature anomaly back down to a moderately reasonable deviation, almost every power plant globally would need to be shut down. Graphically, it means in order for the tempature curve to bend, the drop would be practically vertical. However, each tenth of a degree matters, so 1.6 is better than 1.7. Now, the member countries must work together to keep this decimal difference a reality, and hopefully start to bring down the temperature. Nevertheless, with the global average at 1.6℃, approximately 14% of the population will experience severe heat waves at least every 5 years. Hence, the conditions are extremely dry and dangerous. A Penn State study reported these environmental changes coupled with intense heat places California at an even higher risk for fires, resulting in triple the amount of fires in California from the 2010s to 2020-23. If California continues neglecting to implement fire preventive measures, especially as global warming is accelerating, then wildfires will continue to pose a significant threat.