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Wildfires in California and many other parts of the US are a common occurrence, but the recent Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in and around Los Angeles were the most destructive in Southern California history.
The Palisades and Eaton wildfires were by far the most catastrophic…
But there were actually 17 destructive wildfires in Southern California from January 7 to 31, 2025, killing at least 29 people, destroying or damaging over 18,000 homes and structures, and forcing more than 200,000 people to evacuate.
So, what caused the January 2025 wildfires and could more have been done to prevent them?
Read on to find out.
(Source: CAL FIRE)
Palisades Fire Damage Assessment
According to CAL FIRE’s damage assessment, the Palisades Fire caused:
- 23,707 acres burned
- 6,831 residential, commercial, and other structures destroyed
- 973 structures damaged
- 12 confirmed civilian fatalities
- 1 confirmed firefighter injury
As of February 4, 2025, the Palisades Fire is 100% contained. However, many evacuation orders remain in place, displacing residents even if they were fortunate to have their homes survive the blaze.
Fallen power lines, damaged trees, burned-out guard rails, and other debris are still being cleared to make evacuation zones safe for residents to return.
Find official resources and guidance here.
What Caused the Palisades Fire?
CAL FIRE lists the cause of the Palisades Park Fire as “under investigation,” but many theories — conspiracy and credible — have emerged.
Here is a summary of the likely causes.
- Ignition from an Earlier Fire: According to the New York Times, the Palisades Fire “ignited on Tuesday, Jan. 7, just before 10:30 a.m.”
It was preceded by the much smaller Lachman Fire nearby, which occurred on New Year’s Day and that firefighters thought had been extinguished completely.
After thorough investigation, the cause of several deadly wildfires in recent years is ignition from small fires that firefighters thought were extinguished, including the Maui wildfire of 2023 that killed 102 people.
- Downed Power Lines: Damaged power lines have a long history of sparking wildfires, both in California and all over the country. Poles close to the ignition point of the Palisades Fire had been identified as potentially hazardous. Work began to replace some of the poles with more robust metal structures in 2019 as an “essential [part] of our wildfire mitigation plan.”
However, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power encountered resistance from environmental regulators, and the project doesn’t appear to have been completed.
The NY Times found that the “nearest overhead power line was about a third of a mile to the north, [and] witness photographs show it was still intact soon after the fire began.”
Downed power lines haven’t been ruled out as a cause, but it appears unlikely in the Palisades Fire. - Arson or Human Negligence
Many wildfires are started directly or indirectly by people, unintentionally or with malice.
Smoking is a common culprit, and the New Year’s Day blaze that preceded the Palisades Fire is thought to have been caused by errant fireworks.
Social media posts showed hikers near Skull Rock, the probable flashpoint of the fire, but no evidence has emerged to suggest they were responsible for starting the fire.
Assistant LA police chief Dominic Choi said, “We are looking at every angle.” Arson has not been ruled out for any of the LA fires, but as for the Palisades Fire, “there has been no definitive determination that it is arson.”
(Source: CAL FIRE)
Eaton Fire Damage Assessment
- 14,021 acres burned
- 9,413 residential, commercial, and other structures destroyed
- 1,074 structures damaged
- 17 confirmed civilian fatalities
- 9 confirmed firefighter injuries
What Caused the Eaton Fire?
The Eaton Fire started later in the day on January 7th, at approximately 6:18 pm.
Battling two massive wildfires at once put firefighters and resources under nearly unbearable strain.
As of February 4th, 2025, the Eaton Fire is 100% contained, but almost 10,000 buildings were destroyed, devastating the area — particularly in Altadena and surrounding areas.
As with the Palisades Fire, the cause is still under investigation.
It should be pointed out that official conclusions as to the causes of wildfires routinely take over a year.
However, with the Eaton Fire, there’s significant evidence that points to a specific cause.
- South California Edison (SCE) Equipment and Negligence
Multiple individual and class-action lawsuits have been filed against South California Edison by Altadena residents and other parties seeking damages from the Eaton Fire.
Multiple eyewitness reports, videos, and organizations monitoring electrical wire activity suggest that negligence in maintaining electrical infrastructure and failure to shut down high-voltage transmission lines when massive faults occurred directly started the Eaton Fire.
A Perfect Storm: No Rain, Drought Conditions, and the Santa Ana Winds:
What started the Palisade and Eaton fires in Los Angeles has yet to be officially determined, but the ignition events were separate, and the causes may differ.
However, the conditions that made the wildfires so devastating and nearly impossible to contain are well known.
Pasadena 2024-2025 Rainfall (Measured in Inches)
(Source: LA Almanac)
- Exceptionally Dry Winter
December to February is considered the “rainy season” in Southern California, but rainfall was exceedingly light in 2024/25. Prior to the Palisade and Eaton Fires, the last time Los Angeles received more than one 10th of an inch of rain was in May 2024.
As the chart above shows, rainfall in Pasadena — the nearest weather station to Altadena — was almost non-existent in the second half of 2024 and early 2025. Blue skies and no rain are typical for much of the year in LA, but not in December and early January, immediately before the fires.
US Drought Conditions (2024)
(Source: Drought.gov)
- Drought Conditions
As shown in the map above, Los Angeles and much of Southern California spent most of 2024 in drought conditions.
Unfortunately, the situation has only gotten worse. According to Drought.gov, “Extreme record or near-record dryness since the start of the water year (October 1, 2024) has expanded and intensified drought in southern and central California and Nevada, including in the area of the Los Angeles wildfires.”
The Santa Ana winds’ role in LA fires and why wildfires in California, the West are getting worse
- Santa Ana Winds
The Santa Ana Winds — once known as the “Devil Winds” — is an annual weather phenomenon primarily affecting the Southern California coast and Northern Baja, CA
Strong, arid winds start inland and bring hot, dry weather, with sustained wind speeds close to 100 mph and gusting to over 160 mph.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Santa Anas are the driving force behind the spread of most Southern California wildfires.
About 10 to 25 Santa Ana wind events occur annually and typically last from one day to a week.
The longest continuous Santa Ana event on record occurred in 1957 and lasted 14 days.
The Santa Ana wind event, which started on January 6, 2025, and gusted on and off for 17 days, is considered the driving force behind the spread of the Palisade and Eaton Fires.
Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and other books about LA, told New York Magazine in 2019, “No one will ever be honest about this, but firefighters have never stopped a wildfire powered by Santa Ana winds. All you can hope for is that the wind will change.”
Winds over 70 mph exacerbate every aspect of a wildfire, from turbocharging the oxygen supply that fuels the fire’s intensity to making conventional firefighting and containment strategies ineffective or impossible to execute safely.
Helicopters and fire planes like water bombers and air tankers are grounded.
Firehoses are useless at fighting wildfires in winds higher than 30 mph — let alone 70 or 80 mph with gusts of 100 mph.
Attempting to use hoses and conventional firefighting equipment under such conditions puts firefighters at risk and wastes valuable resources — like water.
No matter what caused the Palisades and Eaton fires to ignite, the perfect storm of zero rainfall, months of drought, and extremely high Santa Ana winds made them devastating and impossible to contain.
Was California Prepared for the Los Angeles Wildfires?
Many experts consider California the most prepared state for wildfires in the US.
However, whether the state government and local authorities were adequately prepared for the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025 is the subject of intense political and media debate.
Even the “facts” of what led to the devastating wildfires and whether anything further could have been done to prevent them are in dispute.
Governor Gavin Newsom has even taken the unusual step of launching a website — californiafirefacts.com — to combat “misinformation.”
Many officials claim that no practical level of preparation could have prevented the catastrophic event.
“LA County and all 29 fire departments in our county are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster,” said Anthony C. Marrone, the fire chief of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department, at a news conference on January 8th. “The LA County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given the sustained winds and low abilities.”
Academics who study wildfires in the region agree.
“This particular event is a rare high-impact event,” said Joshua Lee Pulsipher, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo, “You could have a whole army of resources available, but it would be at a great cost for something that may not be warranted.”
There were reports of fire hydrants running out of water…
However, “experts told CNN even fully functioning hydrants would not have been enough to battle fires of the magnitude of those that raged, particularly when air resources, such as helicopters and fixed-winged aircrafts were grounded due to the wind.”
Greg Pierce, a water resource expert at UCLA, said: “I don’t know a water system in the world that is prepared for this type of event.”
Still, some key officials had raised the alarm about wildfire preparedness before the January fires.
Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley wrote to LA Mayor Karen Bass in a December memo that the $17M in cuts to the fire department budget in 2024 “severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies.”
Bass defended the cuts, saying they didn’t impact the outcome.
Shortly after the January fires began, Crowley disagreed, saying the “city failed her department.” “We are screaming to be properly funded,” she told the interviewer.
As with any major disaster, many fingers are being pointed, and perhaps there’s plenty of blame to go around.
However, it’s unclear whether any reasonable steps to be better prepared could have significantly mitigated the 2025 LA Fires.
What Are the Leading Causes of California Wildfires?
Human activity is responsible for starting the overwhelming majority of wildfires in California.
Natural disasters and extreme weather — like high winds and drought — make it easier for wildfires to spread and get out of control…
But except for the occasional lightning strike, most wildfires ignite due to humans, whether through negligence, equipment failures, or arson.
Here are the leading causes of wildfires in California.
- Equipment Use: Automobiles, agricultural and construction equipment — even lawnmowers — frequently spark fires in CA.
- Downed Power Lines and Grid Infrastructure Malfunctions
- Careless Smoking
- Arson
- Campfires
- Trash Burning
- Lightning Strikes
Are the California Wildfires Caused by Global Warming?
Many people don’t believe that human-made climate change is responsible for global warming or any extreme weather events, let alone the California wildfires.
However, the vast majority of scientists studying the Earth’s climate and other experts agree that climate change from carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions is dramatically increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires in California and many other disasters.
A recent study concluded that human-made climate change exacerbated the January 2025 LA wildfires in the following ways:
- Increased Likelihood and Intensity of Extreme Fire Weather: Climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels, increased both the probability (by approximately 35%) and intensity (by about 6%) of extreme fire weather conditions (measured by the Fire Weather Index, FWI) experienced during the LA fires in January 2025. The trend is non-linear, with high FWI conditions increasing faster in recent decades.
- Extended Dry Season: Climate change has lengthened the dry season in Southern California by approximately 23 days. The period when vegetation and other “fuels” are dry and likely to burn overlaps more with the Santa Ana wind season — crucial for the initial spread of wildfires.
- Drought Conditions: Climate change increased the likelihood of dry conditions leading up to the fires.
- Increased Frequency of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns: The frequency of atmospheric circulation patterns that strengthen Santa Ana wind events has increased in winter, raising the risk of weather conditions that drive the spread of wildfire.
- Increased Potential Burned Area: Fire models indicate that the burned area in December-January in Los Angeles is substantially higher today than it would be in the absence of climate change.
- Reduced Winter Rainfall: Climate models projected reduced precipitation totals and rainfall frequency in southern California. A diminished rainy season dries vegetation and other fuels, increasing exposure to Santa Ana wind events.
- Vapor Pressure Deficit: A substantial, warming-driven increase of atmospheric vapor pressure deficit accelerates drying vegetation.
This World Weather Attribution study was published only 21 days after the Palisades and Eaton fires began and has yet to be peer-reviewed.
However, many climate experts unaffiliated with WWA have already endorsed the results.
Final Thoughts
It will likely be months before the official causes of the 17 California wildfires in January 2025.
No matter the specific ignition events that sparked each wildfire, the likelihood of more devastating events in the near future remains.
No matter where you live, educate yourself about potential risks related to extreme weather events, natural disasters, and extended power outages.
Be prepared and stay safe.