Fires, Fires Everywhere

The Los Angeles-area wildfires set records and received an unprecedented amount of media attention—and no wonder.  The Palisades fire burned out 23,448 acres, and the Eaton Fire, at the same time, roared through 14,021 acres.  The Hughes fire, two weeks later, incinerated another 10,425 acres.  This was followed by the Lidia, Archer, Woodley, Sunset, Kenneth, Hurst and Auto fires, which scorched another 2,399 acres.  The fact that the catastrophe areas happened to be densely populated, and included expensive celebrity mansions, added (ahem) fuel to the media firestorm of coverage.

California typically experiences its worst fire damage in the summer, when the dry, gusty Santa Ana winds blow through the region.  The fact that the damage erupted in the normally wetter month of January, fueled by unseasonable Santa Anas, is particularly ominous.

But the media shouldn’t have been surprised.  Since 2000, U.S. wildfires have roared through an average of 7 million acres a year, and 2024 was one of the worst years on record, with just under 9 million acres going up in smoke.  Canada lost 40 million acres to fire in 2023 and more than 13 million acres last year.

And the fire damage is not the end of the devastation.  The air around burn sites is toxic for up to a month afterwards, and there is increased risk of flooding in the burned area for two to five years after a wildfire.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has advised Americans to prepare for more of the same.  It cites notable impacts of climate change, including increased heat, extended drought and the consequent lack of moisture in trees, shrubs, grasses and forest debris.

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Sources:

https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-wildfires-what-we-know-palisades-eaton-los-angeles-rcna188239 

https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disasters/2024-north-american-wildfires/