• The Los Angeles firestorms show how quickly wildfires can turn into urban fires.
• Flying embers, not direct flames, often ignite homes first.
• Homeowners can mitigate fire risk by maintaining a clear perimeter around their properties.

The firestorms razing Los Angeles show how quickly wildfires can turn into devastating urban conflagrations.

Two fire management experts say there's a common misunderstanding about how homes ignite under these conditions. Understanding how a brush fire becomes urban can help homeowners prepare their properties for future fires.

Take a look at the below photo. Not all the homes on this block are up in flames yet, and blazes in the distance appear to be spaced apart.

"These are scattered ignitions. It's not this wave of destruction," Jack Cohen, a former fire research scientist at the US Forest Service, told Business Insider.

Cohen isn't in Los Angeles, but he studied wildland-urban fires for more than 30 years, both in the lab and in the field. The magnitude of the LA fires is unprecedented, he said, but the process by which they burned down homes probably is not.

It's not a wall of flame or radiative heat from a wildfire that overtakes neighborhoods, he said. Often it's flying embers landing in flammable spots on and around homes.

These "spot ignitions" are like kindling. Embers accumulate on roofs or in yards. Soon ornamental plants, leaf-filled gutters, firewood piles, or deck chairs are up in flames.

If those little fires are close enough to the house, the flames can start to overtake the building.

How homeowners can reduce future fire risk

Homeowners can help prevent future fires from spreading to their homes by maintaining a five-foot perimeter of no flammable materials — no mulch, no ornamental plants, no layers of fallen pine needles, and no piles of wood.

Even better is a 30-foot perimeter that's "lean, clean and green," according to FEMA. If you have that much space around your house, keeping it clear of dead branches and keeping trees and bushes well-spaced can help.

"You are where the rubber meets the road. The things you do on your house and around your house are going to make the difference," Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation specialist and instructor for the National Fire Protection Association with 30 years of federal wildfire management experience, told Business Insider.

With the proper perimeter, Cohen said, even homes caught in conflagrations like the Palisades and Eaton fires could survive.

However, photos from the aftermath so far in the Palisades don't seem to show surviving houses unique amid burned blocks.

Cohen noted that trees are still standing in some of those areas, which is visible in live news coverage, showing the fires didn't move through neighborhoods like a wall of flames.

Because embers can travel far, spot ignitions can crop up in various, seemingly random locations throughout a wildfire-adjacent neighborhood. Suddenly a house is on fire here, and another one over there.

Then the houses spread the fire to each other.

Sometimes that happens when a burning house's roof collapses, Cohen said, which sends a convective column up into the wind, which can then push flames into other houses.

Alternatively, the wind can loft burning material from a house and carry it to other homes, igniting new fires.

The extreme winds that have buffeted LA this week spread those embers and bits of burning debris far and wide.

Some houses are close enough to their neighbors that, if the next house has flammable siding — made of wood, perhaps — the mounting flames can quickly overtake it.

Even when houses are close together, building with non-flammable materials can help.

Once houses are up in flames in a place like the Palisades, Cohen and Durland said, it's no longer a wildfire. It's an urban fire.

With thousands of homes ablaze and powerful winds stoking the flames, firefighters have been unable to contain the fires in Los Angeles.

To stop things from getting to that point — before fires ever start — it's crucial for cities and communities to clear dry, highly flammable grasses and brush, whether through controlled burns, livestock grazing programs, or other means.

"This is a team sport, okay? Nobody can solve this alone," Durland said. "It is going to take community planning and it's going to take leadership at the political level and the community level and the state level."

Satellite images from January 6th to 8th show just how quickly the California wildfires spread and the sheer scale of the devastation.

Wildfires are currently devastating the greater Los Angeles area, burning over 45 square miles, torching over 1,300 structures, and putting nearly 180,000 people under evacuation orders as of Thursday. And yet, TikTok’s LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if that’s not possible, while the […]

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• Firefighters are using a range of technologies and equipment in their efforts against the fires in California.
• New AI-powered sensors for detection are paired with kerosene-powered aircraft for suppression.
• Here are some of the tools on the scene helping to protect lives and property from the flames.

With a 27,000-acre inferno bearing down on America's second-largest city, fire crews are using multiple tools at their disposal in their efforts to protect lives and property.

California firefighters have a range of old and new technologies to aid in their task, ranging from AI-powered sensors for fire detection to kerosene-powered aircraft for suppression.

US and Canadian water bomber planes and helicopters have been some of the most prominent pieces of equipment in the field as they scoop up seawater to quench the blazes nearby.

Less visible forms of tech are also contributing to the effort — sometimes without any initial human involvement.

UC San Diego's ALERTCalifornia project now has a network of cameras at high-risk sites, with 115 located in Los Angeles County alone, with more than 1,140 cameras across the state.

Last month, Orange County fire officials credited the system for being instrumental in their first AI detection of a vegetation fire, which allowed first responders to contain the incident to less than a quarter acre.

Startups are getting involved too. Sonia Kastner, CEO and cofounder of the Salesforce Ventures-backed startup Pano AI, told Business Insider that new trends in firefighting are shifting as fire seasons worsen, with an increased focus on early detection and rapid containment.

"You can think of it as similar to how we treat cancer," Kastner said. "We screen early, then treat cancer aggressively at stage one, so that it never becomes stage four."

Rather than relying on bystander reports, Kastner says cameras and analysts can provide first responders with quicker confirmations and more precise locations.

" It's a matter of luck of whether a bystander sees the fire," Kastner said. " And then there's a mandatory confirmation step where a single fire engine is dispatched to drive around and try to find the fire. With that, you lose hours."

Satellites and drones are also taking a more significant role in wildfire management and response, offering drastic before-and-after comparisons of the fire's effects.

The cameras and sensors are only good for letting responders know where a fire is — getting it under control still requires the use of more physical kinds of tech.

The US Forest Service's website details the range of aircraft it uses to respond to wildfires, ranging from single-engine air tankers that can deliver up to 800 gallons of fire retardant, to larger air tankers that carry up to 4,000 gallons and water scoopers that collect water from nearby sources.

In addition to government planes, aircraft from private sector partner Coulson Aviation, which has a contract with Los Angeles County — have also been spotted dousing flames.

In particular, the Canada-based company operates a fleet of specialized helicopters that can drop water with a high degree of accuracy, though high winds in recent days have complicated the effort.

"The Coulson Crew is currently on the frontlines of the Palisades Fire in California. We remain dedicated to supporting suppression efforts and safeguarding lives and property," the company said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, crews on the ground continue to rely on tools and techniques developed over a century of modern firefighting, with hoses, chainsaws, and even buckets.

It's hard, dangerous work, but modern technologies are helping responders on the ground and in the air do the job more effectively.

• At least five separate wildfires are ravaging Los Angeles and Southern California.
• The Palisades Fire alone has burned through over 17,000 acres of land in two days.
• For context, the entire island of Manhattan is 14,600 acres.

A series of wildfires have battered Los Angeles and other surrounding areas of Southern California since Tuesday, killing at least five people, burning through tends of thousands of acres of land, and destroying at least 1,000 structures.

The damage so far is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

When natural disasters strike, numbers like these — that reach the thousands, millions, and even billions — can become difficult to comprehend.

To put the wildfire destruction in California into perspective, here are seven statistics to help understand the damage they have inflicted.

The Palisades Fire alone has burned through 17,000 acres. That's larger than the entire island of Manhattan.

That makes the fire, which started on Tuesday morning, the most destructive fire in Los Angeles' history, according to multiple reports.

The island of Manhattan in New York is roughly 15,000 acres.

In total, more than 26,978 acres had been burned as of 1:45 a.m. Thursday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported.

Officials ordered 130,000 to evacuate, a number that's greater than the population of Kansas' capital city.

That number is more than the population of Topeka, the capital of Kansas, which has a population of 125,457, according to 2023 population estimates by the US Census.

Los Angeles' total population is just under 4 million people. That means around 3% of the city's population has been displaced.

More than 420,000 people are estimated to be without power. That's roughly the population of Minneapolis, the largest city in Minnesota.

The number comes from PowerOutage.us, which has been tracking power outages across California.

One estimate puts damage and economic losses at $52 to $57 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in US history.

That preliminary estimate, from forecasting service Accuweather, could increase if the fires spread to further areas.

For comparison, the total GDP of the country of Libya is $48 billion, according to the IMF.

If this was a hurricane, that'd make it the 10th-costliest storm in history, right below 2012's Hurricane Sandy.

More than 7,500 LA firefighters have been deployed, but that's still not enough.

Governor Gavin Newsom is sending in the state's National Guard, and more firefighters are coming from Nothern California. The Los Angeles Times reported Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone requested aid from fire departments in Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, and Utah.

Wind gusts have reached 90 mph. That's equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.

The powerful winds contributed to the quick spread of the fires and hampered firefighting efforts.

For comparison, Category 1 hurricanes have wind speeds of between 74 and 95 mph, and they can do a lot of damage. Hurricane Florence was a Category 1 storm when it made landfall in North Carolina in September 2018, and was one of the costliest hurricanes in history.

Universal Studios was forced to close for the first time since COVID-19 in 2020.

Universal Studios said in a statement it closed its gates on Wednesday "out of an abundance of caution" due to the high winds and fires, closing for the first time since the park shut down in March 2020, per People. It remained closed on Thursday.

Disneyland, located in Anaheim, has been able to remain open.

• Wildfires are burning across Los Angeles, coating the county in smoke.
• Health agencies issued warnings and schools closed as air quality reached unsafe levels.
• Experts break down why the fine-particle pollution can cause serious, long-term damage.

Wildfires erupted across Los Angeles, coating the county in smoke, haze, and an acrid smell.

The LA Public Health department issued an air quality alert, and many schools closed due to dangerous air quality. 

The mist that hovers over wildfire sites is a collection of fine-particle pollution (PM 2.5), Dr. David Hill, a pulmonologist with the American Lung Association, told the AP. 

"We have defenses in our upper airway to trap larger particles and prevent them from getting down into the lungs. These are sort of the right size to get past those defenses," Hill said. "When those particles get down into the respiratory space, they cause the body to have an inflammatory reaction to them."

What is the risk of wildfire smoke?

Fine-particle air pollution can cause inflammation in the lungs and reduce heart function — lasting effects similar to smoking cigarettes or exposure to diesel exhaust, the New York Times reported. 

Dr. Kari Nadeau, a physician and scientist at Stanford University, told the Times she believes the risk to our health is higher than that of smoking cigarettes. "Cigarettes at least have filters," Nadeau said.

This kind of air pollution is particularly risky for children, whose lungs are still developing. 

"They breathe in more air per unit of body weight," Laura Kate Bender, the lung association's National Assistant Vice President of healthy air, told the AP.

The risk of lung and heart irritation is also higher for older adults and people with lung or cardiovascular conditions, including asthma.

6 ways to stay safe when it's smoky outside

• Keep an eye on the air quality in your area to determine how long you should exercise caution. Until the risk passes, there are easy things you can do to protect yourself from experiencing long-term lung inflammation.
• If possible, stay inside and close your windows, Hill said. (You can put your zip code into AirNow.gov to find out the air quality in your area.)
• Do not burn candles, light a fire, or smoke indoors. That increases indoor pollution, according to a blog post from epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, of the University of Texas Health Science Center.
• Do not vacuum. That also affects your indoor air by kicking up any fine particles that may have come in through your window or door, Jetelina said.
• If you do go outside, wear an N95 mask, which — if fitted correctly — blocks out 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. As such, they effectively keep out 2.5-micron particles, which we're seeing from the wildfire smoke. "N95 masks are the type of face covering protection that I would recommend for somebody who is outside during the air pollution caused by wildfires," Marina Vance, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Healthline.
• While inside, you can run your air-conditioning unit if it has a good HVAC filter, and an air purifier can help too, the American Lung Association recommends.

There’s a video going viral this week of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles with a wildfire raging behind it, letters glowing in the blaze. It’s a powerful scene, up there with the burning McDonald’s sign in imagery that’s come out of this week’s devastating fires spreading across LA. 

I've seen several people sharing this same video with shades of shock and heartbreak. But it’s AI-generated. When it was posted, according to a Community Note on one of the posts, a look at the Hollywood sign livestreams showed the sign was fine; as of writing, the feeds are down, but Hollywoodsign.org, a website that runs a live webcam pointed at the sign, told fact-checking site Snopes "Griffith Park is temporarily closed as a safety precaution, but the Sign itself is not affected and is secure — and the cameras will slowly but surely come back up." 

Another viral image of the Hollywood sign burning is also AI: 

Then there’s X poster Kevin Dalton’s image, which he later admitted was made with X’s Grok generative AI tool “for now,” showing what I can only assume he imagines as “antifa” in all black descending on a burned-out neighborhood to loot it. “The remains of Pacific Palisades will get picked clean tonight,” he wrote. (Dalton’s been making AI paint him little fantasy pictures of Trump firing California governor Gavin Newsom, so this is a big week for him.)  

People are also obsessively generating Grok images of Newsom fiddling in front of fires or saving goldfish (???). 

The very real footage and images coming out of Southern California this week are so surreal they’re hard to believe, with entire miles of iconic coastline, whole neighborhoods, and massive swaths of the Pacific Palisades and LA’s east side turned to ash (and still burning as of writing).  

Interestingly, a lot of this week’s news cycle has turned to blaming AI and its energy usage as contributing to climate change. But others are not wasting an opportunity for boosterism. In a stunning show of credulity, British-owned digital newspaper The Express ran a story with the headline “Five dead in LA fires as residents think AI tech could have prevented disaster” based on a quote from one evacuating 24 year old they found who took the opportunity in front of a reporter to breathlessly shill for AI, as an AI industry worker himself. “[Los Angeles’] fire and police departments don’t invest in technology [sic] hopefully more people build AI robotics solutions for monitoring or help. Instead a lot of people in ai are building military solutions. Aka putting a gun on top of a robot dog,” Chevy Chase Canyon resident William Lee told The Express. “Robotics operated fire response systems. It costs $6-18k for AI humanoid robots. LAFD salary is approx $100k/yr… 3,500 firefighters. We can slowly integrate robotics to put less lives at risk, but also for assistance."

That guy was so close to saying something prescient it’s painful: Robot dogs are a stupid waste of taxpayer money, and not a hypothetical one, as LA approved $278,000 for a surveillance robot dog toy for the LAPD in 2023. But the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget was cut by nearly $17.6 million this fiscal year, while giving even more money to the police department’s already massive budget: the LAPD received a $2.14 billion budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, representing an 8.1% increase. 

“Humanoid robots” as an absurd proposition aside, I don’t want to write off all forms of new technology as useless in natural disasters. Machine learning and machine vision technology seem to show promise in helping detect, track, or prevent wildfires: Last week, University of California San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia camera network alerted fire officials of an anomaly spotted on video, and firefighters were reportedly able to contain the blaze to less than a quarter acre. But companies taking investment to “solve” wildfires are also profiting off of a crisis that’s only getting worse, with no promise that their solutions will improve the situation. 

Overwhelmingly, AI is being crammed down the public’s throats as a tool for generating some of the dumbest bullshit imaginable. That includes misinformation like we’ve seen with these fires, but also bottomless ugliness, laughably terrible bots, sexual abuse and violence. And it’s sold to us as both our inevitable savior and the next world-ending existential crisis by people with billions earned on the theft of human creativity, and billions more yet to gain. 

AI might help solve tough problems related to climate change and things like wildfires, water scarcity, and energy consumption. But in the meantime, data centers are projected to guzzle  6.6 billion cubic meters of water by 2027, in service of churning out sloppy, morbid fantasies about tragedies within tragedies.

• Wildfires are rampaging across Los Angeles County this week.
• Hundreds of thousands of people are under evacuation orders or warnings.
• Insured losses could top $20 billion, JPMorgan analysts estimated — the most-ever in California.

The Los Angeles area battled a series of massive wildfires Thursday that continued to rip through its picturesque mountains and hillsides — creating a hellscape of burned-out neighborhoods and livelihoods that could end up being the most costly fire disaster in California history.

JPMorgan analysts said the blazes tearing through the region could lead to more than $20 billion in insured losses — and around $50 billion in total economic losses. That would make these conflagrations "significantly more severe" than the Camp Fires that struck the state in 2018 and racked up $10 billion in insured losses, the current record.

As of Thursday morning local time, an additional 200,000 people had been placed under evacuation warnings — with officials advising them to get ready to leave their homes if the fires raging near their residences got closer.

Thick bands of smoke could be seen in several directions from the city's downtown core — with at least five fires burning throughout the 4,000 square-mile county that's home to nearly 10 million people.

More than 29,000 acres have burned so far — and at least 10 deaths have been reported as of 9 p.m. local time on Thursday.

And at least 10,000 homes and other structures have been destroyed so far, per the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman described the scene in LA as apocalyptic.

"Not since the 1990s, when Los Angeles was hit with the fires, the flood, the earthquake, and the riots, have I seen such disaster occur here in our city," Hochman said at the briefing, referring to the Northridge Earthquake and the disturbances in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

The National Weather Service predicted the "red flag warning" that signals high fire danger will persist for LA County and nearby Ventura County through Friday.

But there was some brightening on the horizon: Officials said weather conditions are beginning to turn favorably for firefighters.

Meanwhile, 20 people have been arrested on suspicion of looting in areas affected by the fires, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at Thursday's briefing.

And he issued a stern warning to the public: Anyone who remains in areas under mandatory evacuation orders is guilty of a misdemeanor, and his officers will begin enforcing that. Beyond that, crimes like looting could reach the felony level, he said.

As for people still in their homes, around 95,000 power customers remain in the dark, Janisse Quiñones, the CEO and chief engineer of the city's Department of Water and Power, said. Satellite images of the LA fires showed the destruction left in their wake.

Here's a look at the latest happenings in the main fires spreading throughout the area:

Palisades Fire

The Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades area north of Santa Monica was the first fire to strike the region on Tuesday morning. It has spread to nearly 20,000 acres, making it one of the worst natural disasters in LA history, officials said Thursday.

Data from state agency CalFire early on Friday showed that the fire was 6% contained.

The blaze has reduced thousands of structures to rubble, but exact numbers are not yet known, the officials said.

Wind gusts in the area have tamed down some since their Tuesday highs of nearly 100 mph but remain up to 60 mph. They were expected to continue through Thursday.

Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley would not confirm reports that the fire started in a resident's garden, saying the origin is still under investigation.

Some celebrities have lost homes in the blaze, including Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal.

Eaton Fire

The second-largest fire in Los Angeles County is the Eaton Fire, which started on Tuesday evening in the Pasadena-Altadena area at the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

The blaze has spread to over 13,000 acres and reduced at least 1,000 homes to ash as of Thursday, officials said. As of early Friday, it was zero percent contained, according to CalFire.

Still, LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said the fire's growth has been "significantly stopped," and the cause remains unknown.

Hurst Fire

The Hurst Fire, which began late on Tuesday night in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, spread to around 855 acres, according to data from CalFire, a state agency.

CalFire data estimated it was 37% contained early on Friday.

LAFD's Crowley said firefighters have been able to hold the fire within a containment area and have established a perimeter.

Sunset Fire and others

The Sunset Fire broke out in the Runyon Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, quickly spreading to scorch over 40 acres and threaten major LA landmarks.

As of Thursday morning, firefighters were able to stop the fire's forward progress, Crowley said. Crews are still working to "put out spot fires within the perimeters to keep the wind from spreading any additional embers," she said.

All evacuation orders related to the Sunset Fire were lifted as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Crowley said.

Meanwhile, a large structure fire broke out nearby, consuming two large homes in the Studio City area. Still, firefighters were able to stop its forward growth at just one acre and prevent another brushfire, Crowley said.

Another fire, the Kenneth Fire, started on Thursday afternoon near Calabasas and Hidden Hills, north of the Palisades Fire. The fire quickly grew from 50 acres to 1,000 acres in less than a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued for several neighborhoods near the fire.

An evacuation notice intended for residents impacted by the Kenneth Fire was mistakenly sent out across LA county due to a "technical error," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in an X post.

Yet another fire, the Lidia Fire, started Wednesday afternoon in Acton near the Antelope Valley, about 20 miles northeast of the San Fernando Valley. It spread to consume 348 acres but has been 60% contained, per CalFire.

One of this week's fires has been 100% contained. The Woodley Fire, which began Wednesday morning in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, has been suppressed and there are no current threats, Crowley said. Patrols were monitoring the area for any flare-ups, she said.

Events canceled and landmarks closed as smoke chokes LA

Major and minor events alike have been canceled or postponed across the LA area as the city battles the fires.

The 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards, set for Sunday night, were rescheduled for January 26. A National Hockey League game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames, scheduled for Wednesday night at Crypto.com arena, was postponed. The LA Lakers rescheduled Thursday night's game.

Music venues across the city were also canceling or postponing their shows, including The Troubadour, The Wiltern, The Echo, the Kia Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and others.

Flights into and out of LAX, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Ontario International Airport, and Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport were also experiencing delays and cancellations.

The fires are also shuttering tourist attractions in and around Los Angeles, which attracts nearly 50 million visitors a year.

The fires forced some Los Angeles-area landmarks to close, including the Hollywood sign, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Broad Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Villa and Getty Center, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk, and the Griffith Observatory.

Airbnb told CNN that it would be allowing refunds for bookings in areas affected by the wildfires, following a viral social media post from a customer who said the company refused to offer her a refund.

California already struggled with an insurance crisis

The devastating fires this week will likely only worsen California's ongoing insurance crisis, where many homebuyers already struggle to get approved for loans, home insurance, and fire insurance — even in areas outside the typical risk zones.

In recent years, some insurance companies, like State Farm, have stopped accepting new home insurance policies in the state entirely, as wildfire risks have only increased.

Experts told Business Insider that prices are likely to continue rising for those who can still get insurance.

"I've seen numbers go up 200%, 300%, even 500% in a year," Nick Ramirez, the owner of a California insurance agency, told BI.

And as the fires' estimated damages already climb into the billions of dollars, some homeowners will have to rebuild without the help of insurance payouts.

"These fires will likely be the costliest in history, not the deadliest, and that is the only silver lining right now," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, told LAist.

This a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• The Palisades and Eaton fires have razed thousands of homes and burned tens of thousands of acres.
• Some buildings have survived, though, like the Getty Villa art museum in Pacific Palisades.
• The Villa is not your average home, but homeowners can learn from what Getty staff have been doing all year.

As the Palisades and Eaton fires burned through thousands of acres on Tuesday, razing nearly 2,000 homes, the iconic Getty Villa remained standing with minor damage. Meanwhile, homes and trees around it went up in flames.

"We deeply appreciate the tireless work and dedication of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and other agencies," the museum said in a statement Wednesday morning.

The Getty Villa is part of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which includes the largest endowment of any museum in the world, estimated at more than $8 billion in 2023. It houses the trust's collection of Ancient Greek and Roman art.

Fire departments used "state-of-the-art air handling systems" to help protect the building, Katherine E. Fleming, the president and CEO of the Getty Trust, told USA Today.

Moreover, builders designed the galleries with double-walled construction, which also helped protect the precious art inside.

However, it wasn't just expensive architecture and state-of-the-art firefighting that helped. Getty staff have been consistently clearing brush from the surrounding area all year as part of its fire-mitigation efforts, the museum said.

That's a crucial lesson for homeowners in fire-risk areas.

Yard work to save your home

The Palisades fire has become the most destructive ever to hit Los Angeles, CNN reported, citing CalFire data.

The fire has been fueled by an explosion of grasses and brush that grew abundant over the past two winters, which were rainier than usual. But with drought conditions over the past few months, that brush dried out, becoming kindling for the fast-moving blazes.

To mitigate the risk of fire, cities, fire departments, and community members can clear dried grasslands around residential areas.

Individual homeowners can also protect their properties by clearing a 5-foot perimeter around their houses and removing flammable materials like ornamental plants, bark mulch, or deck furniture.

"This is an urban fire. We're burning urban fuels," said Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation specialist and instructor for the National Fire Protection Association with 30 years of federal wildfire management experience.

Keeping gutters and roofs clear can also prevent spot ignitions that can send entire structures up in flames.

"People believe that they're helpless," Durland told Business Insider in 2023. But that's not the case, he said. "Nine out of 10 times, this boils down to two words: yard work."

Homeowners can also install noncombustible, 1/8-inch mesh screening on any vents to a crawl space or attic to prevent embers from entering the home that way.

"You are where the rubber meets the road. The things you do on your house and around your house are going to make the difference," Durland said.

In 2020, after walking by refrigerated trailers full of the bodies of people who died during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic one too many times, my fiancé and I decided that it would maybe be a good idea to get out of New York City for a while. Together with our dog, we spent months driving across the country and eventually made it to Los Angeles, where we intended to stay for two weeks. We arrived just in time for the worst COVID spike since the one we had just experienced in New York. It turned out we couldn’t and didn’t want to leave. Our two week stay has become five years.

While debating whether we were going to move to Los Angeles full time, my partner and I joked that we had to choose between the “fire coast” and the “water coast.” New York City had been getting pummeled by a series of tropical storms and downpours, and vast swaths of California were fighting some of the most devastating wildfires it had ever seen. We settled on the fire coast, mostly to try something new. 

It turns out this was a false choice. Since we’ve moved to Los Angeles, we have experienced the heaviest rains in the city’s recorded history, the first hurricane to ever trigger a tropical storm warning in Los Angeles, and, of course, the fires. New York City, meanwhile, has had both tropical storms and this summer fought an out-of-control brushfire in Prospect Park after a record drought. Both coasts are the fire coast, and the water coast. 

We have been very lucky, and very privileged. Our apartment is in Venice Beach, which is probably not going to burn down. This time, we will not lose our lives, our things, our memories. We had the money and the ability to evacuate from Los Angeles on Wednesday morning after it became clear to us that we should not stay. What is happening is a massive tragedy for the city of Los Angeles, the families who have lost their homes, businesses and schools. 

I am writing this to try to understand my place in a truly horrifying event, and to try to understand how we are all supposed to process the ongoing slow- and fast-moving climate change-fueled disasters that we have all experienced, are experiencing, and will definitely experience in the future. My group chats and Instagram stories are full of my friends saying that they are fine, followed by stories and messages explaining that actually, they are not fine. Stories that start with “we’re safe, thank you for asking” have almost uniformly been followed with “circumstances have changed, we have evacuated Los Angeles.” Almost all of my friends in the city have now left their homes to go somewhere safer; some people I know have lost their homes.

I knew when I moved to Los Angeles that we would to some extent experience fires and earthquakes. I live in a “tsunami hazard zone.” I also know that there is no place that is safe from climate change and climate-fueled disaster, as we saw last year when parts of North Carolina that were considered to be “safer” from climate change were devastated by Hurricane Helene.

We are living in The Cool Zone, and, while I love my life, am very lucky, and have been less directly affected by COVID, political violence, war, and natural disasters than many people, I am starting to understand that maybe this is all taking a toll. Firefighters and people who have lost their homes are experiencing true hell. What I am experiencing is something more like the constant mundanity of dystopia that surrounds the direct horror but is decidedly also bad.

I knew it would be windy earlier this week because I check the surf forecast every day on an app called Surfline, which has cameras and weather monitoring up and down nearly every coast in the world. The Santa Ana winds—a powerful wind phenomenon I learned about only after moving to California—would be offshore, meaning they would blow from the land out to sea. This is somewhat rare in Los Angeles and also makes for very good, barreling waves. I was excited. 

I had a busy day Tuesday and learned about the fire because the Surfline cameras near the fire were down. In fact, you can see what it looked like as the fires overtook the camera at Sunset Point here: 

The camera livestream was replaced with a note saying “this camera is offline due to infrastructure issues caused by local wildfires.” The surf forecast did not mention anything about a fire. 

I walked out to the beach and could see the mountains on fire, the smoke plumes blowing both out to sea and right over me. The ocean was indeed firing—meaning the waves were good—and lots of people were surfing. A few people were milling around the beach taking photos and videos of the fire like I was. By the time the sun started setting, there were huge crowds of people watching the fire. It was around this time that I realized I was having trouble breathing, my eyes were watering, and my throat was scratchy. My family locked ourselves into our bedroom with an air purifier running. Last week, we realized that we desperately needed to replace the filter, but we did not. A friend told us the air was better near them, so we went to their house for dinner. 

While we were having dinner, the size of the fire doubled, and a second one broke out. Our phones blared emergency alerts. We downloaded Watch Duty, which is a nonprofit wildfire monitoring app. Most of the wildfire-monitoring cameras in the Pacific Palisades had been knocked offline; the ones in Santa Monica pointing towards the Palisades showed a raging fire.

Every few minutes the app sent us push notifications that the fire was rapidly expanding, that firefighters were overwhelmed, that evacuation orders had expanded and were beginning to creep toward our neighborhood. I opened Instagram and learned that Malibu’s Reel Inn, one of our favorite restaurants, had burned to the ground.

Apple Intelligence began summarizing all of the notifications I was getting from my various apps. “Multiple wildfires in Los Angeles, causing destruction and injuries,” from the neighborhood watch app Citizen, which I have only because of an article I did about the last time there was a fire in Pacific Palisades. Apple Intelligence’s summary of a group chat I’m in: “Saddened by situation; Instagram shared.” From a friend: "Wants to chat about existential questions." A summary from the LA Times: “Over 1,000 structures burned in LA Count wildfires; firefighter were overwhelmed.” From Nextdoor: “Restaurants destroyed.” 

Earlier on Tuesday, I texted my mom “yes we are fine, it is very far away from us. It is many miles from us. We have an air purifier. It’s fine.” I began to tell people who asked that the problem for us was "just" the oppressive smoke, and the fact that we could not breathe. By the time we were going to bed, it became increasingly clear that it was not necessarily fine, and that it might be best if we left. I opened Bluesky and saw an image of a Cybertruck sitting in front of a burnt out mansion. A few posts later, I saw the same image but a Parental Advisory sticker had been photoshopped onto it. I clicked over to X and saw that people were spamming AI generated images of the fire.

We began wondering if we should drive toward cleaner air. We went home and tried to sleep. I woke up every hour because I was having trouble breathing. As the sun was supposed to be rising in the morning, it became clear that it was being hidden by thick clouds of smoke. 

Within minutes of waking up, we knew that we should leave. That we would be leaving. I opened Airbnb and booked something. We do not have a “Go Bag,” but we did have time to pack. I aimlessly wandered around my apartment throwing things into bags and boxes, packing things that I did not need and leaving things that I should have brought. In the closet, I pushed aside our boxes of COVID tests to get to our box of N-95 masks. I packed a whole microphone rig because I need to record a podcast Friday. 

I emailed the 404 Media customers who bought merch and told them it would be delayed because I had to leave my home and cannot mail them. I canceled meetings and calls with sources who I wanted to talk to. 

Our next-door neighbor texted us, saying that she would actually be able to make it to a meeting next week with our landlord with a shared beef we’re having with them. Originally she thought she would have to work during the time the meeting was scheduled. She works at a school in the Palisades. Her school burned down. So had her sister’s house. I saw my neighbor right before we left. I told her I would be back on Friday. I had a flashback to my last day in the VICE office in March 2020, when they sent us home for COVID. I told everyone I would see them in a week or two. Some of those people I never saw again.

A friend texted me to tell me that the place we had been on a beautiful hike a few weeks ago was on fire: “sad and glad we went,” he said. A friend in Richmond, Virginia texted to ask if I was OK. I told him yes but that it was very scary. I asked him how he was doing. He responded, “We had a bad ice storm this week and that caused a power outage at water treatment that then caused server crashes and electrical equipment to get flooded. The whole city has been without water since Monday.” He told me he was supposed to come to Los Angeles for work this weekend. He was canceling his flight.

A group chat asked me if I was OK. I told them that I did not want to be dramatic but that we were having a hard time but were ultimately safe. I explained some of what we had been doing and why. The chat responded saying that “it’s insane how you start this by saying it sounds more dramatic than it is, only to then describe multiple horrors. I am mostly just glad you are safe.”

We got in the car. We started driving. I watched a driverless Waymo navigate streets in which the traffic lights were out because the power was out. My fiancé took two work meetings on the road, tethered to her phone, our dog sitting on her lap. We stopped at a fast food drive through.

Once we were out of Los Angeles, I stopped at a Best Buy to get an air purifier. On my phone, I searched the reviews for the one they had on sale. I picked one out. The employee tried to sell me an extended warranty plan. I said no thank you, got back in the car, and kept driving away from the fire. I do not know when we will be able to go back.

• Air travel is being disrupted by strong winds and wildfires in Los Angeles.
• Several airlines have waived change fees for flights to Los Angeles and Orange County.
• Some flights to Burbank were diverted, and passengers photographed the fires from the skies.

The wildfires devastating Los Angeles and the strong winds intensifying them are disrupting air travel in and around the city.

Los Angeles International Airport, or LAX, remained open as of Thursday. LAX, the city's main airport, is over 10 miles from Pacific Palisades, where the largest fire, the Palisades Fire, is burning.

Other Los Angeles area airports, including Hollywood Burbank Airport, also remained open.

At LAX, 134 flights were delayed on Thursday while 40 were canceled, according to data from FlightAware. LAX has an average of nearly 700 daily nonstop flights. On Wednesday, 282 were delayed and 11 were canceled.

The airport said it was open and operating normally but advised passengers to check their flight status with their airline.

At Hollywood Burbank Airport, which is smaller than LAX, 21 flights were delayed on Thursday while 4 were canceled, according to FlightAware. On Wednesday, 57 were delayed and 45 were canceled.

On social media, the airport also told travelers to check their flight status before flying.

After a lengthy dry spell in the region, the Santa Ana winds produced gusts up to nearly 90 mph this week. The strong winds and the fires — which have led to five deaths and more than 130,000 people being evacuated — have caused knock-on effects, including significant flight delays and airlines issuing waivers to allow passengers to amend their flights.

American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue are among the carriers that are issuing waivers for change fees. The affected airports are LAX, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Ontario International Airport, and Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport.

The BBC reporter Ben Derico said his Wednesday flight to Burbank had to turn around and return to Las Vegas.

"After a bumpy attempt at touching down the landing was abandoned," he wrote. "The captain told us the winds were just too strong."

Tai Wright, from North Hollywood, told Newsweek her flight from Dallas to Burbank diverted to LAX.

"The heat inside the aircraft started to rise, and the smoke smell filled the cabin," she said.

"The entire landing was rocky, with the aircraft swaying and turning in all directions right up until touchdown, and everyone on board applauded with good reason after we touched ground."

Santa Monica Airport is the closest to the wildfires, about 3 miles south of an evacuation order resulting from the Palisades fire. It is a general aviation airport, which means commercial flights don't typically operate there.

Aviation is also playing a key role in fighting the wildfires. The Los Angeles Fire Department said 12 helicopters and six fixed-wing aircraft were in operation.

The FAA issued two temporary flight restrictions on Thursday near the fires in order to keep the area clear for firefighting aviation operations.

• Elon Musk said SpaceX will donate free Starlink terminals to areas of LA hit by massive wildfires.
• The city is battling a series of huge fires which have forced over 100,000 residents to evacuate.
• Starlink has previously been used after natural disasters like Hurricane Helene, and in conflict zones.

Elon Musk says he will donate free Starlink terminals to Los Angeles as the city fights a series of devastating wildfires.

The SpaceX founder said on Wednesday night that the rocket company would provide the terminals to areas hit by the huge wildfires, which have forced 100,000 people to evacuate and plunged the region into chaos over the past few days.

"SpaceX will provide free Starlink terminals to affected areas in LA tomorrow morning," the billionaire wrote in a post on X.

SpaceX's Starlink service provides internet using a network of thousands of low-orbit satellites.

The technology is designed to offer connectivity in rural areas and regions without consistent internet access, and has been regularly deployed at natural disaster scenes in recent years.

Musk has also offered free Starlink services to areas hit by extreme weather events in the past.

In October, SpaceX waived costs to use the internet satellite service for those hit by hurricanes Milton and Helene, which battered the east coast of the US in late 2024 — although some users found that they still had to pay as much as $400 to purchase a Starlink terminal.

SpaceX has also deployed Starlink to war-torn regions such as Gaza and Ukraine, although not without political controversy.

Musk's announcement that SpaceX would supply Starlink to "internationally recognized aid organizations" in Gaza prompted fierce backlash from Israel, which had largely blocked communications from the territory since it launched a destructive invasion in the aftermath of attacks by Hamas in October 2023.

The company eventually received permission to set up the service in a hospital in Gaza, Musk confirmed in July last year.

Starlink's presence in Ukraine, where it has served as a key military communications tool for the Ukrainian army since 2022, has also dragged Musk into geopolitical minefields.

In 2023, the billionaire was heavily criticized for refusing a request from Ukrainian forces to enable Starlink over Crimea, foiling an attack on the Russian navy.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.

• The Palisades and Eaton fires are devastating parts of Los Angeles, destroying entire communities.
• Photos offer a glimpse at the scale of destruction that occurred in just a day and a half.
• The situation is still ongoing and dangerous, with evacuation orders in many areas.

The Palisades and Eaton fires are ripping through parts of Los Angeles and causing mass destruction.

Firefighters are still struggling to contain the blazes, which grew rapidly and have continued for more than 24 hours.

The fires have destroyed at least 1,000 homes. Five people are reported dead. These counts are preliminary, as the situation is still dynamic.

It's difficult to grasp the scale of these fires, but emerging photos paint a grim picture.

The massive Palisades and Eaton fires ripping through Los Angeles show how quickly brush fires can escalate under dry, windy conditions.

More than 70,000 people were under evacuation orders on Wednesday afternoon. Officials have warned that people in many other surrounding regions should prepare to leave their homes at a moment's notice.

Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation specialist and instructor for the National Fire Protection Association with 30 years of federal wildfire management experience, told Business Insider that if he lived in the area, he would leave before evacuation orders even hit his home.

"I would have left and gone to the beach or gotten a hotel," he said.

A giant smoke plume was rising over Santa Monica within an hour of the Palisades Fire igniting Tuesday morning.

UC San Diego's ALERTCalifornia camera network captured it from the other side of Santa Monica. At that time the fire covered about 200 acres.

So many people had to evacuate that Palisades Drive was gridlocked.

Many people abandoned their cars and fled on foot.

Since then, the Palisades Fire has burned through more than 15,800 acres. This was the area with evacuation zones early Wednesday afternoon.

That's where the acreage stood at 2:30 p.m. PT on Wednesday. Throughout the morning it was increasing hour by hour.

The most up-to-date evacuation orders and warnings are available through CalFire.

Photos are emerging from areas where the Palisades Fire has burned its way through.

The Eaton Fire in nearby Pasadena also rapidly ballooned overnight and Wednesday morning.

The Eaton Fire covered 10,600 acres as of 1 p.m. PT on Wednesday.

Images from that area show a similar situation to Pacific Palisades: frantic evacuations and destroyed homes.

The smoke from the fires filled the Los Angeles area, darkening the skies and causing unhealthy air quality.

A powerful windstorm spread the flames quickly, sending embers flying and igniting new spots, even jumping across roads.

Hurricane-force winds peaked overnight and Wednesday morning, and firefighters were unable to contain the blazes.

"Despite the efforts we put in with well-trained firefighters and equipment and aircraft, the wind and the weather still are ruling these situations," Durland said of major, fast-moving fires like these.

Another ALERTCalifornia camera captured the rising smoke from a ridge on the other side of the fire about an hour after it started.

This was the view from the same trailhead Tuesday night. This camera has since gone offline.

Bone-dry vegetation provided abundant fire fuel due to a phenomenon called weather whiplash.

The last two winters in Southern California have been quite wet, even causing flooding. That led to an explosion of grasses and shrubs, nearly twice as much as a normal season, according to the UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

However, this winter has been different. Months without precipitation have dried out all that vegetation, blanketing the LA hillsides with fire fuel.

Grasses and shrubs help spread the fire, but it's "human fuels" that ignite homes, Durland said.

"It's bark mulch, it's ornamental grasses, it's structures that are readily flammable," Durland said.

"This is an urban fire. We're burning urban fuels," he added.

That means that cities and homeowners can do something about it. More fire-resistant landscaping and construction can help protect homes from future firestorms like this.

There are always houses that survive wildfires, Durland said, and everyone can learn from that.

It helps to build homes with ample space between them and maintain a perimeter of at least five feet that's totally free of dry or flammable vegetation or mulch.

Homeowners can also keep their roofs and gutters clear and remove anything flammable from underneath porches and decks.

The Palisades were full of multi-million-dollar homes, which means this could be the costliest fire in US history, Swain said.

According to a preliminary estimate from JP Morgan, insured losses alone could amount to $10 billion.

The Eaton fire, burning in Pasadena and Altadena, was at 0% containment as of Wednesday afternoon.

Watch Duty, an app to track wildfires with live maps and alerts, has become the No. 1 free app in Apple’s App Store as of Wednesday morning. The fire-tracking app surpassed the ChatGPT app for the No. 1 spot as devastating fires continue to rage across Southern California. ChatGPT had been in the No. 1 […]

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