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The Palisades Fire grew over the weekend to consume over 1,325 acres in western Lost Angeles County by Sunday afternoon, with zero containment as of 1:30 p.m. PT. In the dense chaparral between Malibu and Santa Monica, a mandatory evacuation has affected some 1,000 people in 500 homes, many of which were multimillion-dollar complexes.
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The Los Angeles Fire Department anticipates that conditions will worsen into Sunday night, as “the vegetation in this area is very dry and has not burned in 50-plus years.” The cause is still under investigation, though the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced Saturday that a team was in the “Topanga area in search of arson suspect setting fires.”
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Though the fire remains relatively small, the blaze is one of several to burn this month in a state reeling from its worst-ever fire season. And while the fire season is traditionally considered to begin in June, researchers at UC Irvine found in a study last month that the “start of the wildfire season has also advanced to May.”