What Caused the LA Inferno?
As wildfires rage in the heavily populated city of Las Angeles, California, so too do debates on the underlying causes. There appears to be as much disagreement in America about why the fires started and ravaged the city, killing 27 people (38 people are still missing) at the time of the composition of this article with 170,000 people under evacuation as there is over how to respond and rebuild.
Although many volunteers, including over 1000 prison inmates – for even convicted criminals have been moved by the scale of the calamity – are helping firefighters contain the mega blaze, much chaos has ensued resulting in finger pointing rather than coming together in the face of crisis.
The mayor of Las Angeles, Karen Bass, an admirer of Fidel Castro and once a heroine of the left is being criticized even by her Hollywood base and their cohorts for leaving the city just as exceptionally dire warnings that conditions were rife for wildfires to catch. Despite alarm bells being raised by the National Weather Service on January 2nd and then holding a press briefing on January 3rd about the danger, Bass went Ghana the next day to attend the inauguration of the African nation’s new president. This left many to wonder what part of her municipal leadership job description involved travelling some 7,400 miles to a different continent when the meteorological arm of the Federal Government and its local counterpart were warning that the city entrusted to her care was essentially a tinderbox in danger of imminent ignition.
Las Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (left) proudly posing with Ghana President John Dramani Mahama, following his inauguration. Mayor Bass left for the event with a Whitehouse delegation the day after the US National Weather Service held a press conference issuing dire warnings about conditions being present for a potentially calamitous fire. – Photo courtesy of Youtube from an Instagram post by Ghana President Mahama
Mayor Bass did not return until after evacuation was ell under way and around 12,000 buildings had been consumed in the blaze, attracting red hot ire from both critics and historic supporters.
Right wing political commentators blamed the inability to cope with the crisis on DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – a practice to include historically under-represented groups, be they racial, gender, or in terms of gender identity – in an organization. The accusation has even been levied against LA fire chief, Kristen Crowley who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, even though she is a twenty-four-year veteran of the service, holding many positions, including engineer and captain.
The charge is absurd, and yet it appears there is some truth to it: Chief Crowley wrote to wrote to the Board of Fire Commissioners on December 4, 2023, that budget cuts “have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations.” The mayor had cut $17.8 million from the fire fighters’ budget. But according to CBS News, “When asked about the budget cuts at Thursday morning’s Press Conference (January 9, 2025), Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said they did not impact the department’s ability to handle the ongoing fires.”
According American playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, and author, “Yet many hydrants had been stolen for scrap and never replaced, as periodic inspections had been cancelled due to budget cuts; and hydrants ran dry in the Palisades and in Altadena, where firefighters were reduced to filling their tanks from homeowners’ garden hoses. County officials said this (shortage) was to be expected due to the constraints of the municipal water system, which LA County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said, is not designed to fight wildfires, leaving Mamet wondering where his taxes had been spent.
It turns out that, per the department’s website, the money was diverted to: “Creating, supporting, and promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity while striving to meet and exceed the expectations of the communities are Chief Crowley’s priorities, and she is grateful for the opportunity to serve the City of Los Angeles.”
Mamet’s revelation, put fuel on the fire of the DEI controversy (the pun can be excused).
He concluded that, as important as DEI initiatives are to true blue California, wildfires don’t give a hoot about DEI. Lightning strikes, and the dry brush catches fire, winds giving the flames wings.
UNDERLYING CAUSES
Controversy aside, the management of the wildfires and lack of preparedness of the city and state do not distract from the serious and perhaps unavoidable causes of these fires, which are actually multifaceted. They involve a combination of natural forces, human activity, and systemic environmental challenges rooted in the city’s geography, history, and water supply.
To understand why wildfires are such a persistent threat to Los Angeles, it is crucial to go far back into the past to examine the city’s construction on a dry, desert landscape and its reliance on external sources of water—factors that have shaped the region’s ecology and made it increasingly prone to wildfires.
The Geographical and Climatic Foundation
Although LA is often seen as paradise of beaches, sunshine, and palm trees. However, beneath this image lies a region with a highly fragile and arid ecological base. Located in Southern California, the city sits on a semi-arid landscape that is naturally predisposed to dry conditions and periodic droughts. Despite being characterized by many as a desert, technically, the city’s climate falls in the Mediterranean category, typified by hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Despite its temperate winters, Los Angeles receives very little rainfall throughout the year—averaging around 15 inches annually—leaving much of the surrounding landscape dry and vulnerable to fire. This year, the winter was far from wet.
Like much of the West Coast, the emergence of wildfires forms an historical element California’s ecosystem but these natural phenomena, which are known to be controllable are carrying higher risks due to the intrusion of human activity in the form of urban sprawl and subsequent environmental mismanagement. The congested urban development, which has come up throughout the city has significantly altered the countryside, replacing native scrublands and grasslands with non-native grasses and ornamental plants, prone to catching fire during persistent droughts.
Urban Sprawl and Vulnerability to Wildfires
Los Angeles has long been an expanding city. The rapid increase of its residential and commercial zones such that the urban crosses into wildland has brought ‘development’ closer to the natural habitats, which are highly susceptible to igniting. Over the past few decades, communities in the foothills, canyons, and near the Angeles National Forest have grown at a rapidly heightening pace, resulting in a vulnerable intersection of human habitation and flora on land that has a propensity to combust.
A concrete jungle, LA’s expansion covered nearly 5000 sq. miles (file)
Such unchecked expansion has become compounded by people settling in areas that are naturally be far less conducive to being developed in an urban manner. The city’s spreading into these areas is not only a result of geographic proximity but also a consequence of policies that have prioritized swift growth over environmental sustainability, putting more infrastructure including residential and commercial structures at risk each year from the wildfires, which only seem to be increasing in frequency over the past few decades.
Water Supply: A Lifeline from Elsewhere
Las Angeles has no natural water reservoir in the same way that a desert city such as Cairo can rely upon the Nile River. Hence, the city’s must depend on external sources for water. In recent years, sources such as the Colorado river basin have been in drought, and Lake Mead stands at less than 50% capacity with Lake Powell being similarly depleted. The pressure on these sources to serve LA’s growing population and its associated industries has sent water prices skyrocketing and led to directives from the city to conserve water. Despite the situation, LA is replete with verdant lawns that contain water like sponges due to auto-sprinklers neighbourhood convention to keep the grass green. Such lawn ‘maintenance’ is severely detrimental to the city’s water management activities.
The Colorado River, which flows from the Rocky Mountains through the southwestern United States, continues to be the major water supplier for Southern California. The Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1913, channels water from this distant river to the city, while a complex network of pipelines, reservoirs, and treatment plants ensures that the flow of water to the city continues. However, the supply system has become increasingly stained due to prolonged droughts, overuse, and the effects of climate change on the Rockies. Water levels have diminished in the river substantially by consequence.
Colorado River horseshoe bend – Photo courtesy of National Parks Service, USA
The Owens Valley, once a rich and verdant area, served as another major source of hydration until the city’s water demands led to the construction of the aqueduct system in the early 20th century. In the process, much of the water that had historically flowed into Owens Valley was diverted to Los Angeles, degrading the habitat of the valley and heightening tensions between local communities and environmentalists. The situation has led to Los Angeles also importing water from more distant sources, such as the State Water Project, which pumps water from Northern California – this too is under stress.
The dependence on external water sources stretches the natural ecosystems of the region, especially land surrounding the Los Angeles foothills and the chaparral ecosystems Southern California. The diversion of water has depleted groundwater levels and reduced the ability of the earth to support natural vegetation. This makes the area more susceptible to wildfire.
The Role of Climate Change and Dry Conditions
In recent decades, climate change has amplified the risk of wildfires in Southern California, and the January 2025 wildfires are a direct consequence of this uptick. The Mercury has risen in California, recently, leading to a resulting rise in evaporation, drying out vegetation, essentially making it kindling. With higher temperatures and prolonged dry seasons the susceptibility to wildfires has dramatically risen.
In addition, weather patterns that are typical of La Niña events (cold water in the Pacific Ocean) have contributed to drier winters, meaning that the state’s seasonal rainfall, which normally a mitigating factor for wildfires, has been reduced substantially. In January 2025, the region was hit by an unusual dry spell that exacerbated these already perilous conditions.
US National Weather Service graphic illustrating the danger to Las Angeles from wildfires, issued on January 2nd, two days before Mayor Karen Bass left LA, flying 7500 miles away from the city to Ghana
The Immediate Causes of the January 2025 Fires
The January 2025 fires themselves were sparked by a combination of dry conditions, high winds, and human activity. It is thought that some smaller, localized fires were likely caused by discarded cigarettes, power line malfunctions, and other human-induced factors contributed to the problem. That said, it was the exceptionally high winds from the Sierra Madre—reaching speeds over 70 mph in some areas—that carried the flames across vast swaths of land, light up brush as movement continued, entering the suburbs.
Higher heat and an ongoing drought made the fires to burn hotter and faster than in previous years causing widespread destruction of homes and displacement of tens of thousands of people. This underscored the vulnerability of the city’s infrastructure to natural disasters.
Based on an understanding of the above factors, the wildfires in Los Angeles in January 2025 should not have come as a surprise. The fires demonstrate the effects of of a series of interconnected issues, from the city’s unsustainable development patterns to its dependence on external water sources and the increasing effects of climate change. Las Angeles should have had a contingency plan in place – but it didn’t. Budget cuts in favour of other priorities – many say wokeness – left the city vulnerable to sustaining critical damage, which it has.
COULD THE DEVASTATION HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?
The damage to Las Angeles due to the recent wildfires has been estimated till date to be in the range of $250 billion. One should bear in mind that such early estimates rarely hold over the long run as project creep tends to heighten rebuilding expenses; the costs usually end up being higher.
Most aren’t aware of the complexity of Las Angeles. The County actually encompasses eighty-eight cities but it does not have fire departments to match. Indeed, when a fire breaks out in one city, usually help is called in from the fire brigades of one or more others.
California governor, Gavin Newsom (who cynically demanding accountability admitted more could have been done after the fact) could have called out the National Guard to mobilize in preparation for a fire that was virtually certain to occur. All that was needed was the spark of ignition to create the perfect firestorm in Las Angeles.
Mayor Karen Bass could have foregone her utterly unnecessary junket to Ghana and sacrificed her hobnobbing with world leaders to issue orders to mobilize fire trucks at strategic locations, which were especially vulnerable to fire. Part of the difficulty faced by the firefighters is that they were called in after the fact and it took time to reach critical destinations due to the winding roads present in LA.
The government could have called in C-130 transport planes retrofitted to carry water or any other flame retardant to fly over the affected areas to put out the flames before they spread too far.
When the firefighter had run out of water, they could have been granted access to California’s second largest water reservoir, the Santa Inez Reservoir, situated next to the Palisades. It had been drained due to contamination. However, unlike drinking water, non-potable water can be used to put out fires. Had the water not been drained, the water could have been used in firefighting.
LA conducted no drills for fire disasters and was behind in fireproofing, which could have mitigated the damage.
Clearly, there was an egregious lack of planning for a disaster such as this. This is a failure of municipal officials to properly prepare to protect the city.
To address these growing risks as the city recovers and rebuilds, Los Angeles will need to invest in fire-resistant infrastructure, rethink urban development policies, and grapple with the broader environmental challenges of water scarcity and climate change. Without significant changes in how the city manages its environment and resources, the January wildfires are only a sign of things to come.
The Global Calcuttan Magazine 
