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It’s been less than a week since the year’s first wildfire embers raced through the air over Los Angeles, carried by hurricane-level Santa Ana winds to spark some of the deadliest wildfires California has ever seen.
The Palisades Fire started Tuesday, and by the end of Wednesday it had burned over 17,000 acres. And in the days since, Angelenos have had to contend with remaining on high alert while rallying to help those who lost everything, all while one wind gust away from potential catastrophe.
“We need Mother Nature to give us a break,” Deputy Chief Brice Bennett of Cal Fire told CNN on Sunday. “We have the firefighters. We have the water. We need the time.”
When these fires might end is only part of the equation — the longer-term question of how to come back from the fiery devastation in a world of increasing extreme weather disasters has no satisfying solution. Exhausted, emotionally tapped and expecting additional red flag warnings to start the week, the city is steeling itself for the unfathomable.
The next few days will prove critical to the firefighting effort, with dry weather and strong winds expected to continue before temperatures cool toward the end of the week, according to the National Weather Service. There’s even a chance of light rain next week, according to the weather service.
Even when the fires do end, the recovery will be lengthy, and the threat of ever more fire never far away in drought-stricken California. Less than two weeks into 2025, more than 100 fires have burned nearly 40,000 acres, a massive increase compared to the five-year average at this point of 46 fires burning 13 acres.
“These numbers underscore the urgency of being prepared,” CalFire said. “Now more than ever, it’s critical to harden your home against wildfires and create defensible space around your property. Simple steps like clearing dry vegetation, maintaining a buffer zone, and using fire-resistant building materials can make a difference.”
The fires with the state’s highest death tolls have had a relatively limited time span. The 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history with 85 killed, stopped burning after 18 days. The second-deadliest fire, the 1933 Griffith Park blaze, killed 29 people in just two days, and the Tunnel-Oakland Hills Fire in 1991, which left 25 people dead, stretched just five days.
Other wildfires burned for months. The 2020 North Complex Fire started August 17 and burned nearly 319,000 acres until it was fully contained December 3 — a total of 109 days. Similarly, the August Complex Fire started just a day earlier, on August 16, and burned more than 1 million acres until November 12 — a total of 89 days.
Once the wildfires are contained, their impact will remain for years to come.
Afterward will come a search for survivors, efforts to identify victims and the start of the cleanup.
Approximately 105,000 residents are under evacuation orders and roughly 87,000 residents are under evacuation warnings, LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a news conference Sunday. Residents won’t be allowed to return to the area until Thursday, after the Red Flag Warning is over, he said.
“The concern is, before we get to that point, we’ve got those winds that are expected to go back up again,” CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar said.
The rainy season in California is generally December through March. But this year, the rain has yet to really begin, with only 0.01 of an inch of rain recorded in LA since December 1.
As for the global scale, extreme weather phenomena such as wildfires have become more common, more destructive and more deadly due to human-caused climate change.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency rated Los Angeles County as “the most susceptible county in the United States to natural disasters,” according to a recent county progress report on an initiative launched in 2023 to create “climate ready communities and infrastructure” given these increased risks.
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