This catastrophe was waiting to happen
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
- Unpacking the questions swirling around L.A. County’s devastating fires.
- Alec Baldwin sues New Mexico, claiming malicious prosecution.
- This country karaoke night in L.A. is a rootin’, tootin’ hootenanny with a queer twist.
- And here’s today’s e-newspaper.
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How do you stop a ‘perfect storm’?
It’s been a devastating, draining week for Los Angeles County.
Ten people confirmed dead. More than 9,000 homes and other structures destroyed or damaged. Over 35,000 acres burned.
The Palisades and Eaton fires are likely the worst disaster in California history in terms of economic loss — and among the worst nationwide.
Then came another blaze, the Kenneth fire, which broke out Thursday afternoon on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley north of the 101 Freeway. By evening it had scorched nearly 1,000 acres and prompted evacuation orders and warnings in Hidden Hills, Calabasas and Woodland Hills.
The layers of tragedy reach at the personal, communal and cultural levels. Thousands of people lost their homes and priceless items inside them as flames clawed through neighborhoods, sparked by wind-driven embers. Hundreds more returned to the scorched remains of businesses they worked hard to create.
Tens of thousands of others had their sense of safety rattled as they were forced to take what they could carry and flee, unsure where to go or what they would return to.
Even those not directly affected by the fires mourned as historic buildings, beloved restaurants, houses of worship and familiar corners were reduced to ash.
As these fires and smaller blazes continue to burn, we’re all trying to understand what failures contributed to this virtually unchecked destruction.
Did the city really cut funding to its Fire Department? Was it the notable absence of Mayor Karen Bass, who was on a trip to Africa as the Palisades began to burn? Or the infrastructure that could not meet the demand for water, leaving fire hydrants running dry? Did the strong winds damage power lines, creating a fateful spark?
There will be plenty of postmortems on how local government leaders and agencies (mis)managed the crisis.
But I keep being reminded: This was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Climate whiplash, made worse by our actions, created a tinderbox.
Researchers have for years been gathering evidence that climate change is creating conditions that will make wildfires increasingly more destructive.
Times reporter Ian James unpacked new research this week that shows those increasingly dramatic swings between heavy rain and searing drought are becoming more frequent and severe due to human-caused climate change.
“California naturally experiences some of the world’s most dramatic shifts between very wet weather and dry spells,” Ian wrote. “And with more warming, the scientists project the state to see these swings become even more extreme.”
In this latest back-and-forth, the exceptionally wet winters of 2023 and 2024 supercharged the growth of brush and grasses in hillsides and canyons. Then came a summer of record-breaking heat, followed by a notably dry fall. That’s how you make a tinderbox.
We’ve built communities out into those tinderboxes.
The origin points of the blazes are textbook wildland-urban interface, or WUI (woo-ee). Those are the places where human development spreads into wild, undeveloped spaces.
Historically, wildfires are a regular and natural part of the ecosystem in and around the Santa Monica Mountains. Sprawling neighborhoods in fire-prone areas supercharges the risks. And then there’s the human factor; Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, estimates more than 90% of wildfires are caused by humans, whether through carelessness, deliberate ignitions or infrastructure failures.
Add to all that the hurricane-force gusts that howled through the region earlier this week and we get the perfect, horrific recipe for inferno at a level our human countermeasures cannot match.
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain put it this way in a recent livestream:
“The reality is when you have bone-dry, critically dry, vegetation and 50- to- 90-mph winds with highly flammable structures densely intermixed with the vegetation, there is not a lot that can be done to stop the aggressive chemical reaction that is the combustion process of an intense wind-driven fire.”
We haven’t adjusted properly to fire given the realities of climate change.
That’s according to Monalisa Chatterjee, a climate scientist and associate professor of environmental studies at USC Dornsife. Her research is centered on how societies are adapting (or not) to climate change and the impacts and vulnerabilities that come with it.
Chatterjee told me the “perfect storm” of risks and the resulting devastation should serve as a reminder that human attempts to control fire — “a natural part of this ecosystem” — may work for a while, but eventually nature hits a breaking point.
“In the past, we’ve been resisting it — let’s not allow any fires to happen, because fires are bad,” she said. “But in reality, that ended up accumulating so much fuel that now, wherever there is any kind of fire events, we are seeing that it is escalating because there’s so much material available to burn.”
It’s vital for communities and government to move from a resistance mindset to a resiliency mindset and learn to coexist with fires, Chatterjee explained. That may include difficult decisions about where we build — or rebuild — homes.
“We have to consider that we are living in a place where there is a fire risk. We have to culturally accept that,” she said. “We should be talking about fire when there are no fires.”
I don’t write this to give government officials and agencies a pass, or to gloss over the unfathomable loss that thousands of families have suffered this week. But I wanted to think about how we collectively view accountability during a disaster of this magnitude.
Could there ever be enough money or firefighters or water when we’re staring down the barrel of a climate disaster shotgun that we helped load?
Was this inevitable in spite of us or because of us? Maybe both.
You can explore the latest reporting from our newsroom on the L.A. County fires, currently accessible to everyone thanks to our paywall being lifted.
- ‘We’re not going anywhere’: Biden says federal government will cover 100% of disaster aid
- Power could be out for days for hundreds of thousands, even far from L.A. wildfires
- Forecast: Strong, gusty winds will be back as wildfires continue to ravage L.A. County
- Shocking before-and-after satellite images show destruction of Malibu and Altadena neighborhoods
- How the devastating Los Angeles fires could deepen California’s home insurance crisis
- What to know about temporary housing, rents, price gouging during fire storm
- 20 arrested on suspicion of looting during L.A. County wildfires
- ‘This is our house’: Mom and son fought off Palisades fire with pump, hose and pool water
- L.A. County to use teeth, DNA to identify John and Jane Doe fire victims
Today’s top stories
Alec Baldwin sues New Mexico, claiming malicious prosecution
- Six months after being cleared of criminal charges in the “Rust” shooting death, actor Alec Baldwin has filed a suit seeking an undetermined amount of damages, including punitive damages.
- The 73-page civil complaint contends that county officials went out of their way to defame Baldwin and their pursuit of criminal charges deprived the actor-producer of his civil rights.
Trial begins for a man accused of serial rapes and dumping women’s bodies at L.A. hospitals
- Prosecutors say that “freelance entertainment planner” David Pearce had been drugging and raping women for nearly two decades across Los Angeles and that his actions turned deadly in November 2021 after Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales Arzola went home with him and some friends following an East L.A. rave.
- Prosecutors have charged Pearce, who allegedly provided drugs to both women, with murder and multiple sexual assaults.
What else is going on
- A rookie LAPD officer killed a bicyclist in a DUI crash in Ontario, police say.
- Late Laker Darius Morris’ dad and brother have been sentenced to prison for money order thefts of $5 million.
- Why the Dodgers finally traded once-coveted prospect Diego Cartaya.
- South Korea’s far right borrows from Trump’s playbook to bolster impeached Yoon.
- The Supreme Court turns down Trump plea to block New York sentencing for hush money conviction.
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Commentary and opinions
- Judge Karen Bass on what she does now, not where she was when the fires started, columnist Gustavo Arellano writes.
- As Trump shoots his mouth off while L.A. burns, his claims about fire hydrants don’t hold water, columnist George Skelton writes.
- Compassion and decency are lost amid wildfires as California foes seek cheap political points, columnist Mark Z. Barabak writes.
- Jimmy Carter didn’t have to die before some historians and biographers, if not Republicans, began assessing his presidency more favorably, columnist Jackie Calmes writes.
- Ten states and federal regulators already ban “captive meetings” in which bosses ply workers with anti-union propaganda. Bosses are trying to kill the same ban in California, Michael Hiltzik writes.
This morning’s must reads
Jimmy Carter and the sad saga of a 9-ton Northern California peanut. In the spring of 1977, the then-president was offered a gift from Northern California: a 9-ton peanut carved from a redwood tree. His aides said no thanks. Now, the saga of the poor old peanut has drawn renewed attention since Carter died last month at age 100.
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
For your downtime
Going out
- ?This country karaoke night in L.A. is a rootin’, tootin’ hootenanny with a queer twist.
Staying in
- ? “American Primeval” — now streaming on Netflix — is a bloody western meditating on survival in a brutal world.
- ??? Here’s a recipe for Christina Tosi’s cinnamon buns with brown sugar goo.
- ?? Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.
A question for you: What do you pack if you need to evacuate?
Gayle Falkenthal writes: “I’ve evacuated multiple times from my San Diego neighborhood. As time has passed, I pack far less. For the most part, it’s just stuff.
I had a brief scare earlier this summer. I packed:
- My laptop and charger
- A small bag with a few changes of clothing, shoes, and cosmetics
- My dog and his leash
- A bit of cash I keep in the house specifically for this purpose
- A tiny box with some precious jewelry that is easy to grab
This and my purse and cellphone were all I took. All my critical paperwork and records are stored online or in a safe deposit box at my bank. Photos are digitized for the most part.
BTW, I filled up my car with a ton of stuff the second time I evacuated (2007). And ... someone stole the car with everything in it except my backpack. Another reason I don’t take much these days.”
And finally ... your photo of the day
Today’s powerful photo is from Times photographer Gina Ferazzi in front of Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center, the only Conservative affiliated synagogue in the western San Gabriel Valley. It has been destroyed by the Eaton Fire, which broke out Tuesday night and has burned over 13,000 acres.
Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they’re important to you.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Defne Karabatur, fellow
Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
Christian Orozco, assistant editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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