California wildfire must-reads from our climate editor

Hi folks,

Paige Vega, Vox’s climate editor here. As you might imagine, the Vox climate team has been busy reporting on the multiple fires that continue to burn in Los Angeles. The blazes continue to rage, and as of Friday afternoon, more than 153,000 people were still under evacuation orders. 

The expansiveness of this disaster has been stunning: The Palisades Fire along the coast near the Santa Monica Mountains had burned more than 20,000 acres as of Friday afternoon (and was still expanding as of this writing). The Eaton Fire near Pasadena has now torched at least 13,000 acres. 

The fires have killed at least 10 people and destroyed more than 10,000 structures. 

As the scope of the damage is beginning to come into focus, the fires continue to expand in many places throughout Los Angeles and yet some are already describing this week’s events as the worst natural disaster in Los Angeles history. While wildfire is a natural part of the California ecosystem, human-driven climate change has amplified the dynamics fueling the fire: An extended dry period in the state has desiccated soil and fuels, priming the landscape to burn and ripping through entire neighborhoods.  

The cost of the destruction is hard to fathom. One preliminary estimate calculated by AccuWeather, the weather forecasting service, put the damage and total economic loss at $52 billion to $57 billion — a sum that could rise if the fires continue to spread. J.P. Morgan also estimated the damage to exceed $50 billion. By Friday afternoon, AccuWeather said the loss could be as much as three times its earlier estimate. 

While Californians will see some winds calm Friday, meteorologists are warning that winds blowing in from offshore are likely to persist into next week. 

As my colleague Umair Irfan reported this week, these blazes are stunning in their scale and speed, jumping from ignition to thousands of acres in a day, but they’re hardly unexpected. 

“Fire forecasters have been warning since the beginning of the year that conditions were ripe for massive infernos, particularly in Southern California,” he wrote. Indeed, an early January bulletin from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) warned that an “above normal significant fire potential is forecast across portions of Southern California.” 

Stay safe, stay vigilant.

—Paige Vega, climate editor

The unusually strong force behind the apocalyptic fires in Los Angeles

Vox climate correspondent Umair Irfan explains the weather dynamics that shape the seasonal Santa Ana winds and why this year’s gusts are so extraordinarily fierce. The winds have fanned several fires burning simultaneously in Los Angeles. Umair explains the bigger picture and how climate change is making disasters like this worse. 

California overhauled its insurance system. Then Los Angeles caught fire.

Just a month before fires erupted in Los Angeles, California overhauled its insurance system. From our partners at Climate Desk, Jake Bittle of Grist explains what implications the recent changes are likely to have for victims of the Palisades Fire and the other conflagrations in Southern California. 

What happens when a wildfire reaches a city?

Earlier this week, we received a question from a reader: Could Los Angeles actually burn to the ground? As fires tore through California’s chaparral ecosystem and closer to dense urban centers, we dug in to find out exactly how bad a wildfire could get in an urban landscape. Li Zhou explains the unique dynamics of urban fires and the fuel that keeps them churning even in the most built-out environments. 

Why does Trump hate this tiny fish so much?

On Wednesday, on Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, for depriving the LA region of water because he wanted to protect “an essentially worthless fish called a smelt.” This is ridiculous for many reasons. Environmental correspondent Benji Jones explains how Trump has gotten it wrong and how the critically endangered delta smelt is a major red herring for California’s water woes. 

Live updates: Wildfires spread across Los Angeles

Watch this space for more coverage next week and beyond. We’ll be posting all of the stories we publish on the disaster here. 

As we continue to cover this unfolding disaster, we’re keeping all of our friends and colleagues and all Los Angelenos impacted by these fires in our thoughts. Please be safe, everyone. And if you have any questions you’d like our reporters to answer as we collectively navigate the implications of the disaster, please reach out to us at climate@vox.com. 

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