Wildfires plague Los Angeles area

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Profit-motivated arson seems an unlikely motive. The most likely result will be to drastically reduce property values.

The finale of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris featured a memorable televised “handover” to the next host city, Los Angeles. Billie Eilish and the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed in front of a quintessentially Californian backdrop: sandy beach, palm trees, blue ocean and crystal clear skies.

But that blissful image has been ruptured in recent days as parts of Los Angeles were engulfed in flames, reducing homes and businesses across the sprawling metropolis to smoldering heaps of ash and rubble, most calamitously in the Pacific Palisades and the community of Altadena.

It’s unlikely the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will be moved — and so far none of the marquee arenas, stadiums or athlete housing complexes have been damaged by the flames. But the fires have nonetheless cast a shadow over the next installment of the Games.

The task facing the city and the organizers who successfully brought the Games to the West Coast is no small feat: rebuild and rebound in time to host some 15 million people for the 17-day sports extravaganza.

At least one top official is confident the City of Angels will be back on its feet in time for the festivities. Casey Wasserman, the chairman of LA28, a private fundraising and organizing group behind the Games, touted the city’s tenacity in the face of obstacles.

Wasserman added that LA28’s “top priority” was “ensuring our community has the resources it needs and that our heroic first responders are fully supported in keeping people safe.”

When asked how the wildfires might affect preparations for the Games, a spokeswoman for Mayor Karen Bass did not directly reply but emphasized her administration's commitment to handling the emergency.

Gabby Maarse said Bass was “laser focused on keeping Angelenos safe and protecting property. She is securing federal, state and local resources needed to continue fighting these fires and is moving forward on an all-of-the-above plan for recovery.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he envisions a 21st century “Marshall Plan” to revive the parts of Los Angeles “ravaged by this disaster.”

“My humble position, and it’s not just being naively optimistic, that only reinforces the imperative [of] moving quickly, doing it in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation,” he said.

Newsom also said the crisis creates an opportunity for the incoming administration to lend a hand.

“President of the United States, Donald Trump, to his credit, was helpful in getting the Olympics to the United States of America, to get it down here in L.A. We thank him for that. This is an opportunity for him to shine, for this country to shine, for California and this community to shine,” Newsom said.

The 2028 Games will be spread throughout Southern California and stretch as far south as Temecula — about 90 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles — and as far east as Oklahoma City, about 1,300 miles away, where softball and canoe slalom will be held.

Track and field and the opening ceremony are set for the historic L.A. Memorial Coliseum, while swimming figures to be a show-stopping event at SoFi Stadium, home of the Rams and the Chargers in nearby Inglewood

In the coming years, LA28 organizers and municipal officials might find themselves competing for construction resources with private businesses and homeowners looking to rebuild. It’s likely that contractors and supplies will be pushed to the limit, and that’s before they factor in the temporary infrastructure required for the Games.

You’d have to go back more than a century to find another Olympics that was changed because of a natural disaster. Jeremy Fuchs, the author of a 2021 book about the history of the Olympics, pointed to one notable example from almost 120 years ago. Rome had been set to host the 1908 Summer Games. But after the deadly and violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906, Italian funds were diverted to support Rome’s recovery.

The 1908 Games were moved to London, though Rome got another chance in the summer of 1960.

One instance of the Games progressing in the wake of a recent catastrophe was when athletes descended on London in late July 1948, a little more than three years after the end of World War II.

The 1948 Olympics were known as the “Austerity Games” as rationing and other wartime restrictions were still in place.

“I very much doubt that L.A. 2028 will be comparable to the war-diminished 1920 and 1948 Games, the fire damage notwithstanding,” said John Hoberman, a University of Texas professor of cultural history who specializes in sports.

The Los Angeles wildfires have so far burned dangerously close to Rose Bowl in Pasadena and the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, local venues set for soccer and golf in 2028.

Hoberman said he couldn’t fathom the International Olympic Committee pulling the games from Los Angeles, short of more once-in-a-lifetime mass tragedies.

“It would take another catastrophe for the IOC to pull the games, which is a hugely political action in any case,” he said.

In a post on X on Sunday, IOC President Thomas Bach said the governing body was “in full solidarity with the citizens of Los Angeles and full of admiration for the tireless work of the firefighters and the security forces.”

A local climate science expert has been praised as a "hero" after his calls for evacuations in Los Angeles helped save hundreds of lives.

The meteorologist Edgar McGregor warned Los Angeles residents that the wildfires would quickly worsen after predicting the changes in wind conditions that spread the blaze.

Newsweek contacted McGregor for more information on his preparations for the fires via email.

What To Know
Edgar McGregor is a 24-year-old amateur climatologist, living in Altadena. He is the leader of the "Altadena Weather And Climate" Facebook group, which he used to post warnings about the incoming wildfires.

McGregor studied climate science at San Jose State University, and prior to the fires, he regularly hiked in the Eaton Canyon, clearing up litter.

When the canyon became the source of the Eaton fire, McGregor began investigating wind conditions around the blaze, and realized that the fire could quickly spread toward his neighborhood in northern Los Angeles.

"The fire was in a location where we actually see wind tunneling, where winds are squeezed as they go through the canyons of Southern California," McGregor told NPR.

"We saw winds of 70 miles an hour that night. And I—when I got the location of where the fire began, I knew this was not going to be good."

On the Facebook group, McGregor started posting updates, warning residents that the fire could spread quickly and that they should prepare to evacuate.

In the wake of the fires, dozens of Los Angeles residents credited McGregor with saving lives and helping them prepare for the fires.

What People Are Saying
Los Angeles resident Susan Hopkins wrote on the Facebook group: "I want to give a shoutout to Edgar McGregor for saving so many lives. Everywhere I go in Pasadena, I run into people who tell me that this 24-year-old guy on the internet told them this was going to happen a week and a half ago and they were ready to go. And they left and they were safe.

"I would like to see who here made the smart choice to leave because of Edgar McGregor. We need to show him our appreciation."

Another resident, Ali Glasser, wrote on the group: "I will never stop repeating that you saved thousands of lives."

Within a half-hour of a fire igniting on an Eaton Canyon hillside in the afternoon of Jan. 7, thousands of residents’ phones buzzed in eastern Altadena with a warning from Los Angeles County: “BE AWARE.” Within 40 minutes, a dire alert: “LEAVE NOW.”

But neighborhoods in western Altadena did not see the same urgency, as evacuation orders didn’t arrive until early the following morning — more than nine hours after the Eaton Fire began.

By then, it was too late.

All 17 people who died in the wind-fueled fire were west of Lake Avenue, a major corridor that runs north-south through Altadena. They included an 83-year-old retired Lockheed Martin project manager, a 95-year-old who was an actress in old Black Hollywood, and a 67-year-old amputee who used a wheelchair and died with his adult son, who had cerebral palsy.

Fifteen of the deaths occurred in an area where the first evacuation order wasn’t sent until 3:25 a.m. on Jan. 8; the other two occurred in an area where the order came at 5:42 a.m., according to a review of the alerts as well as data compiled by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The discrepancy between west and east Altadena is spurring questions among local officials and residents about the timing of the emergency alerts and whether earlier warnings might have saved lives.

“There was not a lot of time to do anything, but our notification system should have been going off long before they were,” Altadena Town Councilmember Connor Cipolla told NBC News on Wednesday. “It’s obvious by the destruction. It failed half our town.”

On Tuesday, two Los Angeles County supervisors introduced a motion calling for an independent review of the emergency notification systems.

While the county evaluates its response following any disaster, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Wednesday that she wants to accelerate an analysis for the wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people and destroyed over 15,000 structures across the region.

“I know that on the west side, the older part of Altadena, it’s far more concentrated, a lot of homes,” Barger told NBC Los Angeles. “We need to find out what happened, but I do know the fire was traveling fast.”

She cautioned that additional notifications may not have saved lives, but said “the victims of this disaster deserve our transparency and accountability.”

Her motion, which will be voted on at the county supervisors’ meeting next Tuesday, followed a Los Angeles Times report on the delayed evacuation notices in the Eaton Fire.

In a statement, the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center said it could not immediately comment on the factors that may have led to the deaths in the fires, and that a comprehensive review will “take months because it will require combing through and validating the call histories of the fire, interviewing first responders on the scene, interviewing incident commanders, and searching and reviewing our 911 records, among other essential steps, including obtaining feedback from all relevant sources. That work may also require a third-party entity to ensure integrity of the investigation.”

Electronic alerts are one method for warning residents, but the county added that it also uses door knocks, patrols with loudspeakers driving through neighborhoods and media coordination.

Jill Fogel said none of that happened in her part of west Altadena.

She was hunkered down with her two young children and their father on Olive Avenue on Jan. 8 when she got a text after 3 a.m. from a nearby friend north of Altadena saying there were flames in her backyard. Fogel, 43, said she checked the Watch Duty app, which offers real-time updates taken from first responders radio broadcasts, but there were no warnings that her neighborhood might have to evacuate.

Then she looked outside her rental home and saw flames. A few minutes later, she got an alert ordering an evacuation, she said. She told her landlord and then her family scrambled into a car and left. As they made their way out of the neighborhood, joining a stream of cars, Fogel said she saw no firefighting vehicles or police cars and heard no sirens.

Fogel said she realized that the fire was moving very fast in the hours before the evacuation order. But she thinks authorities should have sent alerts much earlier.

“I thought it was strange that the flames were so close and we hadn’t gotten a warning,” Fogel said. “I thought they would have let us know a lot sooner.”

More than two weeks after it began, the Eaton Fire is 91% contained, fire officials said Wednesday. The cause remains under investigation.

Investigators have focused on a high-voltage electrical tower in Eaton Canyon as the potential origin, as fierce Santa Ana winds approaching 100 mph drove the flames into Altadena and Pasadena.

High-voltage power lines saw a temporary surge in electrical current in the area where the deadly Eaton Fire is believed to have started following a "fault" on a line elsewhere in the region's transmission network, Southern California Edison said Monday.

While the fault, or disturbance, occurred several miles away on a power line that does not traverse Eaton Canyon, it was detected at 6:11 p.m. on Jan. 7, the utility said in a filing with state public utilities regulators. That was only minutes before authorities received initial reports of a wind-fueled fire originating in the canyon at 6:18 p.m.

"The fault on this geographically distant line caused a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE's transmission system, including on the four energized lines" in Eaton Canyon, the utility said, adding, "The current increase remained within the design limits and operating criteria for these circuits and, as intended, did not trigger system protection on these lines."

The cause of the Eaton Fire, which raced down the canyon and ravaged the foothill communities of Altadena and Pasadena, remains under investigation. Southern California Edison is at the center of a wave of negligence and wrongful death lawsuits after videos taken by residents showed the flames illuminating the base of one of the utility's electrical towers clustered on a hillside, just as hurricane-force Santa Ana winds tore through the region.

While the utility said it did de-energize power distribution lines that serve homes in the area about two hours before the Eaton Fire started, the transmission lines in Eaton Canyon were not shut off because those towers are stronger and can operate at heavier winds.

New video also emerged over the weekend taken from a nearby gas station surveillance camera around the time of the fire and obtained by Edelson PC, a law firm suing Southern California Edison. The footage purports to show electrical arcs and sparking from a transmission tower in Eaton Canyon, and the orange glow of flames appearing about 10 minutes later.

In its filing Monday, the utility told state regulators it is reviewing the video to assess any connection.

Climate change increased the likelihood of the extreme conditions that allowed the recent fires to roar across the Los Angeles area, an international group of scientists said Tuesday.

The hot, dry and windy conditions that preceded the fires were about 35% more likely because of human-caused global warming, according to a new report from the World Weather Attribution group, which analyzes the influence of global warming on extreme events.

The fires, which started during a ferocious windstorm and after almost no rain had fallen in greater Los Angeles since the spring, have killed at least 29 people and torched more than 16,000 buildings, including homes, stores and schools.

“This was a perfect storm when it comes to conditions for fire disasters — the ingredients in terms of the climate enabling, the weather driving the fires and the huge built environment right downwind from where these ignitions occurred,” John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced, who contributed to the report, said at a news conference.

Compared to a preindustrial time before fossil fuels were widely used, there are now 23 extra days of “dry season” on average each year in the Los Angeles region, the report said, making it more likely that fires will coincide with seasonal Santa Ana winds.

Park Williams, a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an author of the report, said fires during cool seasons in Southern California require four conditions: widespread grass or brush that can burn; abnormally dry conditions; an ignition (which almost always comes from a person); and extreme weather, like the recent windstorm. He described each of these conditions as an individual switch in a system that requires all four to be flipped on in order for light to emanate.

“The artificial warming due to human-caused climate change is making the light brighter,” Williams said.

The authors of the report analyzed weather and climate models to evaluate how a warmer atmosphere is shifting the likelihood of fire weather (meaning conditions that increase the risk of wildfire). They also tracked how a metric called the Fire Weather Index changed over time. The index tracks temperature, relative humidity and wind speeds, all factors that contribute to the likelihood of fire.

The researchers found that the kind of conditions that drove the L.A. area fires are expected to occur on average once in 17 years in today’s climate. Such conditions would have been expected once every 23 years without climate change and would have been less extreme when they did occur, the report says.

As a group, World Weather Attribution is a loose consortium of scientists who publish rapid findings about climate change’s role in extreme weather events. Although their research methods are peer-reviewed, this specific rapid analysis has not been through the rigor of a typical academic review process, which can take months or longer. The group’s prior analyses of heat, wildfire and hurricane disasters have held up to scrutiny after initial release and were ultimately published in academic journals.

For climate attribution scientists studying how much climate change is to blame for specific events, wildfire disasters are notoriously challenging to untangle, and local nuances are extremely important.

In the case of the recent California fires, the report's authors found that although climate change played a role, it was not the sole factor.

The hillsides surrounding Los Angeles are filled with brush that has evolved to burn with regularity, and more people are in these areas today than in the past to potentially start fires via cigarettes, power lines, fireworks, vehicles or other sources. Additionally, neighborhood development has pushed deep into areas prone to burn, which means houses are serving as fuel for wildfires and contributing to its rapid spread.

“Fire in Southern California is highly complex, right? It’s a combination of a number of things. This is a landscape that’s got a really distinct human imprint on it,” Abatzoglou said, adding that the Los Angeles region has “a large population, a lot of ignitions, a lot of land-use related issues.”

The influence of climate change on the Santa Ana winds, one of the driving factors behind the Los Angeles fires, remains murky.