By Curtis Johnson
1.17.25
The Palisades and Eaton fires in LA have killled 25 people. Tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate. Thirty people are still listed as missing. The fires are not fully contained, and dangerous conditions sparking further fires continue to persist as of now.
Thousands of people have seen their homes and often all of their most precious keepsakes destroyed. Some have lost friends, relatives and neighbors. Places of small business have been completely burned to the ground. As of this writing, 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed, mainly in the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Photos of these communities show the scale of destruction, with block after block laid to waste.
Pacific Palisades is a mixture of wealthy and middle class residents, including a number of Hollywood celebrities, some of whom have seen their homes destroyed. Altadena is a working and middle class community of mixed nationality and a center of a vibrant Black community. Black people moving from the south to this area during the Great Migration were often prevented through redlining of moving into many parts of LA, but were after a time able to settle in Altadena. Now whole areas of this community have been devastated. The Black community here and more broadly has been coming together to provide aid, determined to rebuild.
Fascist MAGA Lies and the Deeper System Responsible.
Added to the suffering of thousands from the fire’s destruction as well as from days of smoke which is toxic (as I pointed out in an 2017 piece in Truthout) the fascist MAGA-ites led by Trump are taking advantage of the suffering to blame immigrants, lesbian fire officials they claim are hired “through DEI policies”, etc. Perched like vultures on the verge now of full power, they are spreading lies that the problem is California officials diverting firefighting resources and water to programs for immigrants and to save the Delta smelt, a small endangered fish in the San Fransisco Bay Delta region.
The lies continue despite fire officials pointing out that they and no other municipal fire force in existence could have stopped the speed and explosiveness of this fire (which while true points up a big problem for the future). One example of this is that traditional fire policy calls for three fire engines for a single house fire, but here there were thousands upon thousands of structure fires, do the math. Of course Trump et al offer no evidence of any of their claims, just more stuff they have made up, and a number of articles have pointed out the lies in these allegations.
MAGA republicans are now trying to bludgeon California officials by threatening to withhold federal aid unless they further submit to advancing Trump’s hateful anti-immigrant, white supremacist fascist program.
The truth of the matter is there are actual deeper reasons these fires and others like them all over the planet are increasing and levels of harm exploding, which we’ll explore below. And these are reasons that the fascists in particular want to divert attention from.
At the heart of this is global climate change and the increasing heating and drought it causes which sucks vegetation and soils dry, predisposing them to burn. Climate change is largely fueled by the capitalist countries of the world, and largely those in the developed world, continuing to burn fossil fuels. They continue to do this because of how highly profitable fossil fuel exploitation is, and because in the intense competition between various powers, control over fossil fuel resources play a key role in who will come out on top. Global carbon emissions continue to rise, despite the clear crisis this has created or the claims to be addressing the problem.
In combination with climate change, there are a myriad of other ways capitalism functions that are to blame. This, includes continuing destruction of wildlands and endless development that negates natural limits and increases the number and spread of wildfires.( Wildfires are of course a natural phenomena, but are now taking place at an unprecedented scale.) Further reasons lie with the system’s inability to adequately prepare for or take account or really fully plan for such natural disasters, at least in the way the situation really demands.
All these reasons are driven by capitalism, a system that can only function by turning things needed by humans into commodities to be sold for profit. A system that is driven by competition between various interests and entities to maximize profitability in competition with others and therefore makes decisions and allots resources based on profitability and in the interests of continuing that pattern of functioning. A system that is anarchic and unable to plan development and growth, or control or limit it, based on long terms needs of people or ecosystems.
Because of this embedded pattern of functioning, capitalism is driven by it’s own dynamics to put profitability over human lives and ecosystems. In it’s functioning, capitalism and capitalist enterprises view nature and its bounty as simply a free gift to be extracted for maximum profitability instead of something to be cherished and protected.
Both Democrats and Republicans represent the interests of capitalism. The phenomena leading to such disasters as the fires in LA will only become more destructive under a fascist, white supremacist Trumpian rule, that claims in lunatic fashion that climate change which is already catastrophic, is a hoax. Trump promises to “drill baby drill”, removing even minor limitations Dems have put in place, which have done nothing to truly address the climate crisis. Remember during the election how Biden and Harris “countered” Trump’s attacks on drilling by pointing out that under their administration the U.S. has become the largest producer of oil and natural gas on the planet? Which is true. Or how Harris “countered” Trump in Pennsylvania by saying, no she doesn’t oppose, but supports the destructive practice of fracking?
Let’s look deeper at what is taking place in LA.
What Fueled the Fire’s Explosiveness
The Eaton and Palisades fires in LA both started in hills above LA in what is often called the “wildland-urban interface”, where homes and development have spread into formerly wild areas. Such building has been allowed to spread under pressure from developers despite the danger of sparking wildfires that this type of development poses, particularly in drought prone areas like LA. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) warned how this pattern of development is heightening the danger of destruction to human communities and wildlife and altering the natural ecology in a paper written in 2021 “Built to Burn”
The CBD also pointed out how the California State Assembly passed legislation in May of 2024 that would have opened the way for even more development in the state’s high risk fire hazard zones and allowed developers to skirt fire hardening rules for buildings and other fire reduction measures. Fortunately, this bill died in the California Senate but shows the pressure capitalist developers continue to try to exert, despite the danger.
The LA fires spread extremely quickly because of powerful Santa Ana winds, at times in gusts of hurricane strength. The winds spread the fire not mainly by pushing them along the ground, but by sending chunks of burning embers miles into neighboring communities, setting them alight. Embers from incinerated buildings were then blown by the winds throughout. The Santa Anas are a normal occurring phenomena this time of year, but what made them so destructive was their strength in combination with other extreme fire conditions, including a delay in winter rains.
Earth.org calls the conditions fueling the LA fires a “lethal combination of high temperatures and very low humidity, dry vegetation, and strong offshore Santa Ana winds” allowing the fires “to grow and spread much faster than they could be contained.” Very fast fires of this type cause the burning of 75% of the structures burnt in the US from 2001 to 2020.
Meterologist Eric Holthaus says the conditions in LA match what the National Weather Service calls “extremely critical fire weather…sustained winds greater than 30 mph, relative humidity of less than 10% in the presence of drought conditions and temperatures warmer than 70 degrees. This is the first time in history these criteria have been met anywhere in the United States during the month of January.” LA county experienced the hottest summer in 130 years this year and has had virtually no measureable rain since May 2024. At the outbreak of the fires the humidity in the air was reportedly about 2%.
Historically, California and the Southwest U.S. more broadly have suffered periodic droughts, sometimes lasting even decades (see The West Without Water by B. Lynn Ingram). But recent droughts have been the most extreme in recorded history. A scientific paper titled “Indicators of Climate Change in California” shows that investigators using tree-ring data back to the year 800 found the southwest region of the U.S. “determined 2000-2021 to be the driest 22-year period in the region” over the last 1200 years.
And this is not simply due to natural causes. Other scientific work cited in the paper showed about 19 percent of the dryness in 2021 and 42 percent in 2000-2021, were attributable to human-caused climate change. This work also pointed out that “Climate change will continue to make dry and warm years happen more often and drought conditions will worsen” (for scientific sources see link).
The link between climate change and increased wildfires is very well established. A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) titled “Wildfire climate connection” says, “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades.” Studies cited there demonstrate that climate change has been the “main driver of the increase in fire weather in the west” and a key factor in the doubling of wildfires in the west between 1984 and 2015.
Climate in Southern California is shaped by many factors, including swings in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ,( a natural phenomena of shifts between warm and cool phases in the Pacific every 20–30 years) and in the El Nino, La Nina climate cycles, which may bring much more rain or less. The years 2022 and 2023 were El Nino years that brought heavier rain to southern California and even more snowpack to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Sierra Nevada have in general suffered from low snowpack during drought years and more rain relative to snow due to climate change. The heavier rain in the LA region during 2022 and 23 caused enhanced vegetation growth. That vegetation then dried to tinder this past very dry year, providing even more fuel for fires in LA.
Fire experts interviewed by the LA times say the LA fires are symptomatic of the return of largescale urban fires, thought until recently to be a thing of a bygone era-such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. But urban fires have hit California, especially since the 1990s, and more recently “devastated Gatlinburg, Tennesee in 2016, the towns of Superior and Louisville in Colorado in 2021 and Lahaina, Hawaii”, two years ago. The town of Paradise and nearby communities in northern California were wiped out by a wildfire in 2018 killing 85 people and destroying 50,000 structures. The Camp fire that destroyed Paradise was sparked by a badly maintained Pacific Gas and Electric transmission line.
The immediate origins of the LA fires are not proven yet, though residents near the origin of the Eaton fire recorded video of fires breaking out near electrical transmission lines owned by California Edison and some are now suing Cal-Ed.
As the fires continue and people try to overcome the destruction and losses they’ve suffered, people all over have poured in money to aid in their recovery. In a refutation to the hateful BS spread by Trump and MAGA to try to ramp up support for his vicious plans to deport millions of immigrants and despite their fears of ICE roundups, day laborers in LA have come together to take up support efforts for victims of the Altadena fires. This is truly an example we can learn from, to stand together and support immigrants and others who will be coming under increased attack, and to refuse to accept a fascist America.
The certifiable lunatic Alex Jones tweeted on X that the LA fires were the result of a globalist conspiracy to wage economic warfare on and deindustrialize the great USA. To this, Elon Musk, the richest, and arguably one of the most obscene individuals on the planet responded “True”. Are these the people we will accept to be dictating over our lives and our planet?
For the Planet and Humanity 