High winds fanned a brush fire on Tuesday in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades that quickly covered more than 2,000 acres. The blaze forced mandatory evacuations as crews worked to limit its spread, according to news reports and the Los Angeles Fire Department.
What's happening?
A photo published by NBC News showed a horizontal pillar of smoke towering over distant mountains on the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica.
It was the result of a brush fire sparked shortly beforehand, quickly growing from 20 acres to 2,900-plus acres in hours, according to Cal Fire as of publish time. A nearby evacuation center was opened to accommodate the residents forced to flee the blaze, according to CBS News and NBC.
"This happened just spur-of-the-moment," L.A. resident Krishan Chaudry told CBS. "We were just looking at the smoke, and then all of a sudden, we saw fire everywhere."
The National Weather Service issued a red flag fire risk warning Tuesday, citing damaging winds and low humidity. Bullet-train-like gusts of up to 100 miles per hour were forecast.
Why is the fire important?
It's the latest fiery bullet point on a list of life-threatening wildfire disasters in recent years, from the West Coast, to Hawai'i, and Canada. Along with heat and drought, the calamities have caused about $20 billion of property damage a year from 2020 to 2022. In 2018, there was a high point of more than $25 billion in carnage, according to data collector Statista.
All of the damage is causing some insurers to pull coverage or raise rates. Worse yet, Statista reported that wildfires were responsible for about 130 U.S. deaths in 2023, a stark increase from the often single-digit counts marked since 1990.
While not every blaze can be linked to air pollution, the gases are causing an increased risk for wildfires and other severe weather events, according to NASA.
"What there is evidence of — and especially moving forward in the future — is that climate change is increasing the overlap between extremely dry vegetation conditions later in the season and the occurrence of these wind events," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the NBC story. He was talking about West Coast winter wildfire trends.
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What's being done to help?
In the Pacific Palisades area, safety centers were opening as the evacuation orders were being made — all while crews worked to douse the blaze, according to CBS. A cause for it was not reported by CBS, NBC, or fire officials as of Tuesday night, though dry conditions and the high winds were suspected to be the major factors in the spread.
Curbing planet-warming fume production is a way we all can contribute to limiting the risks for severe weather. While driving an electric vehicle, for example, isn't going to stop the next coastal flood, cleaner rides can prevent thousands of pounds of harmful, heat-trapping air pollution compared to gas-burning cars, according to government data.
Staying educated about environmental issues can also help you decide the safest places to live, and how to talk about climate concerns with friends and family.
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