Why Are Los Angeles’s Urban Fires So Devastating?
A common sensed summary of eight complex causal forces and issues which compounded to form the fire storm. There is not one single cause that can be attributed to this disaster.
These causal forces are relevant retrospectively to Australia and the risk metropolitan suburbs face.
Excessive Fuel Buildup
Years and decades of neglect have allowed large amounts of dry vegetation to accumulate, with little to no cool-burning or other fuel-reduction methods in place.
Dry Winter Season
In parts of the Western US and Southern California, winter provides windows of mild and dry conditions to conduct cool burns. Fires can be common at this time because brush and vegetation are cured and ready to burn while other areas experience wetter climatic conditions. Winter conditions and curing provide optimal burning conditions for many fire practitioners to do cool burning to manage fuel in winter. However, fringes around Los Angeles remain largely unmanaged as described earlier.
A Focus on Fire Suppression
For decades, land managers, relevant authorities and bureaucrats have prioritised completely suppressing any ignitions rather than undertaking strategic burns. This has only increased the fuel loads in the macroenvironment and even more to adjacent bushland encroaching on urban areas. Fire suppression restricts the pre-colonial natural-endemic progression of fire resulting in more intense fires and environmental destruction when they do occur even under milder conditions. This also triggers environmental change which can lead to progressive and irreversible ecological demise.
Introduced Eucalypts
Gum trees were brought over from Australia more than a century ago for their drought tolerance. They’ve spread rapidly in an arid environment that historically supported few trees. Planted on hillsides and along suburban interfaces, they can contribute significantly to fire intensity. We have documented and provided evidence of this on our last visit to Los Angeles in 2023 to suburbs that have been destroyed today.
Poor Urban Planning & Lack of Buffers
Many neighbourhoods abut unmanaged bush, reserves, and wilderness zones without adequate (or any) buffer strips i.e asset protection zones. This means fires can easily move from vegetation into suburban areas. This also includes vegetating urban and parkland areas with trees in a climatic zone that did not endemically contain wooded or forested environments.
Building Codes and Timber Construction
Homes in Southern California are primarily built and designed for earthquake resilience (codes)—commonly built with lightweight timber and composite materials. While suitable for seismic events, these materials are significantly more combustible than brick and steel. Bushfire codes are not enforced in home construction or were not applicable when they were built. Homes burn quickly and contribute to faster, more intense fires once ignited. Even before the fire front arrives, ember attacks begin to burn homes down, which essentially transitions the head of a bushland fire front and creates an urban fire scenario. This phenomenon is widely observed as wildfire approaches urbanised environments. The vast majority of homes in the neighbourhoods decimated were built from ply, particle and MDF lumber. There are several examples of homes that survived unscathed that were built to comply with earthquake code and optional bushfire codes.
Aspect: Steep and Mountainous Terrain
Many of these suburbs are perched on hills or in mountain foothills. Fires run rapidly upslope, with embers travelling further and igniting multiple spots, making containment extremely difficult.
Climatic Conditions: Windstorm and Direction
Powerful seasonal winds act like bellows, pushing flames through heavy fuel loads and into residential neighbourhoods, amplifying destruction.
There are numerous other factors that compound the devastation, at a high-level it is important to mention them: Budget constraints, resource management shortfalls, gaps in disaster response frameworks, water pressure and availability, human error, and logistical complexities around accessing communities all heighten the severity, response and management of these events. While progressive climate change accelerates the drying of vegetation, fire practitioners maintain that these challenges can still be tackled alongside more proactive and comprehensive land management regimes.
Los Angeles’s urban fires are so devastating because a dry winter season, decades of unchecked fuel buildup (including invasive gum trees), inadequate bushfire mitigation, flammable building designs prioritised to comply with earthquake codes, steep terrain, and an intense windstorm all coincide. These conditions create a catastrophic fire scenario across the city’s sprawling outskirts.
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