They have been horrible days for Southern California, the voracious fires have devastated everything in their path, deaths, thousands of evacuees and more than ten thousand destroyed structures. Investigators are considering a number of possible ignition sources for the huge forest fires.
In the exclusive hills of Pacific Palisades, Home to Hollywood stars such as Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal — those who lost homes because of the fire —, Officials have located the origin of the flames that were fanned by strong winds behind a home on Piedra Morada Drive, over a heavily treed creek..
3 determining aspects:
The Santa Ana winds
Perhaps the main reason why firefighters have not been able to contain the fire in Los Angeles is named after Santa: the Santa Ana windswhich according to the authorities They have reached up to 161 kilometers per hour in the forest fire areas.
For its part, a publication by National Meteorological Service (SNM) American notes that these regions are generally dry and desert-like, which means that dry winds are generated there that flow from east to west and reach California lacking moisture.
Lack of water
One of the problems that firefighters fighting the flames have pointed out has been the water supply system.. Because there is no air support due to the winds and smoke, firefighters have been forced to use only the hydrant system or urban fire hydrants to control the advance of the flames..
Firefighters ran out of water because the demand was much greater than the speed at which the tank could be replenished.. And the fire remained unstoppable.
State decisions about water distribution were not the cause of the hydrant failures, they said, nor was the general lack of supply in the region..
Water tanks in Los Angeles are designed to fight fires located in homes, not in open spaces.
The problem is not that there is not enough water in Southern California, The problem is that there is not enough water in that particular area of Southern California in the few hours it is needed to fight the fires..
Air support is critical to fighting the fire and, unfortunately, wind and air visibility prevent this.
Drought and climate change
One of the reasons behind the ferocity of the fires in Los Angeles It is related to what scientists call «meteorological whiplash«.
Although the powerful Santa Ana winds are the key component in driving the forest fires, Extremely dry conditions have made local vegetation very vulnerable to forest fires.
Vegetation grew rapidly in wet years, but Now this abundant vegetation is dry and more prone to burning.
Climate change has increased these types of “whiplash” conditions globally by between 31% and 66% since the mid-20th century..
With the planet warming, this means the rate of increase in this ‘whiplash’ is accelerating in many regions of the world, not just California.
Pacific Palisades
The flames spread at a terrifying speed. When residents of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, west of Los Angeles, began to see smoke rising from the hills in front of their homes on the morning of January 7, the fire already had an extent of about 4 hectares.
Within 25 minutes it had grown to cover an area of more than 80 hectares, and in the following hours, the fire spread, engulfing homes, theaters, restaurants, stores, schools and entire communities..
By early morning on January 9, the Palisades Fire already covered an area of 6,800 hectares and, along with the other fires that were generated in the Los Angeles area, became one of the worst fires in history of the city, according to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
‘Big fires’ are being seasonally adjusted more often
Fire has been part of the lives of Californians for decades, but in recent years fires have increased in probability and burned extent. The current episode has also surprised because of the time of year in which it took place, so far from the peak summer season.
«It is not common for there to be fires this catastrophic in January«explains Víctor Resco de Dios, professor of Forestry Engineering at the University of Lleida and expert in these phenomena. «“Fires are becoming more and more seasonal.”he points out, a effect of climate change.
Global warming does not light the flamebut It does create the ideal conditions for the fire to spread, by generating a drier and warmer climate. If we add to that other natural characteristics, such as the wind or a Mediterranean ecosystem prone to flames and other human characteristics, such as territorial planning, the perfect storm is served.
Forest fires: the rule of 30: winds of 30 km/hour, 30% humidity and 30 °C
“In California, specifically the Los Angeles area, there are geographical conditions and on this occasion also atmospheric conditions, which have favored the disaster that is occurring,” explained the geographer and director of the Climatology Laboratory of the University of AlicanteJorge Olcina. It has occurred, he points out“a fairly complete cocktail of facts that magnify the disaster, along with human occupation”.
Southern California has been immersed in a pressing drought for years. Only four millimeters of rain have fallen in downtown Los Angeles since last Maywhich has made this period the second driest since there are records, according to the US National Weather Service
Added to this is the arrival of the Santa Ana winds, a wind coming from the desert “very strong and very fast,” according to Resco, which causes the multiplication of secondary outbreaks due to the throwing of embers over great distances. These winds also increase the speed and make the fire very difficult to extinguish, both due to the conditions of the fire and for the safety of the equipment, details this expert.
In this case, the wind has reached extreme speeds, typical of a hurricane, of up to 159 kilometers per hour. It is something like an “atmospheric dryer” for vegetation.
In this video Daniel Swain explains what happened, he is a climatologist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Once the spark jumps, the fire “it spreads at high speed when the rule of 30 is applied”points out Olcina. This is: winds of more than 30 kilometers per hour, a humidity percentage of less than 30% and temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. In this case, the first two conditions have been more than met, while the temperature has been lower since it is winter.
California, like most of Spain, has a Mediterranean climate. «And in these areas we are seeing that the Precipitation is becoming more irregular, with drought events that are very intense and favor the development of powerful forest fires«, according to the professor at the University of Alicante. Gives an example that To supply water to the south of the State, a desalination plant had to be built in San Diego, despite the large quantities of water stored in the Rocky Mountains..
The problem of living ‘of building horizontally’
But although climate change gives you ‘more numbers in the lottery’ of suffering a forest firethe fact that it is catastrophic is caused by the «problems with territorial planning»according to Resco.
In United States, as well as in other countries affected by the fire such as Canada or Australiathe population generally lives “in a horizontal manner”, that is, in houses, and not in apartments, as is mostly the case in Spain.
These areas with an intermediate population density are “susceptible to suffering from the front” of the firebeing located near natural areas where fire usually starts, and once it has already started, it also spreads easily from house to house and from garden to garden. As these are not isolated houses in the mountains with a small population, nor more protected compact cities, the balance in human destruction is more tragic once the fire arrives..
A clear example of this was seen in the tragic fire in the Attica region of Greece in 2019.where the fire killed more than a hundred people in an area with this type of urban planning.
The North American Indians already did controlled burning
To prevent these fires that are so difficult to put out, the solution sometimes involves looking to ancestral wisdom.. In this fire-prone area, The North American Indians managed to “tame the fire” y make him an allywith techniques such as prescribed or controlled burns, in which they artificially “recreated” a natural fire, in order to protect their towns or crops, explains the specialist from the University of Lleida.
This knowledge “has disappeared”and although there are now similar initiatives, “they are still not on the scale that is needed.” «We cannot choose if there will be a fire or not, but we can choose the type of fire.“, remember.
Added to this are urban planning and territorial planning policies. Resco recalls that, in Spain, there is a map of flood zones, the importance of which has been demonstrated with the Valencia flood, but “to this day we still do not have a map of flammable areas”so we are unaware of the risk when buying a house or going on vacation.
Does it make sense to rebuild, if it’s going to burn again sooner rather than later?
It also focuses on reconstruction. «If we are going to do things the way we have been doing them until now, we are going to continue suffering from the same problems»he points out, an example that applies to California, where many areas burn year after year, as well as to our country.
Many insurers have already given up continuing to cover disasters in Californiaespecially after the destructive fires of 2017 and 2018. Between 2020 and 2022, insurance companies declined to renew 2.8 million home policies in this Statemore than 500,000 in County Los Angelesepicenter of the fire, according to the California Department of Insurance.
One of the areas where the most policies have been suspended is in Pacific Palisades, one of the luxurious suburbs devastated by fire. Precisely because of the value of the charred properties, among other reasons, the first calculations of the cost of these fires, such as that of the meteorology company Accuweather, They already place it between 135,000 and 150,000 million dollars.
It is worth reflecting on whether Malibu and other areas that were going to burn again are worth rebuilding, largely with public money. Each urban expansion on land that was already frequently burning before the arrival of European settlers only added fuel to future fires, in addition to increasing social segregation, he denounced.
