January 2025 Southern California wildfires
From January 7 to 31, 2025, 14 destructive wildfires affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County in California, United States. The fires were exacerbated by drought conditions, low humidity, a buildup of vegetation from the previous winter, and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, which in some places reached. The wildfires killed at least 31 people, forced more than 200,000 to evacuate, destroyed more than 18,000 homes and structures, and burned more than of land.
Most of the damage was from the two largest fires: the Eaton Fire in Altadena and the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades, both of which were fully contained on January 31. Municipal fire departments and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection fought the property fires and wildfires, which were extinguished by tactical aircraft alongside ground firefighting teams. The deaths and damage to property from these two fires made them likely the second and third-most destructive fires in California's history, respectively. In August 2025, researchers from Boston University's School of Public Health and the University of Helsinki published a study, through the American Medical Association, connecting up to 440 deaths to the wildfires.
In October 2025, a 29-year-old man was arrested and charged with starting the Palisades Fire. The man is accused of intentionally setting a fire in Pacific Palisades on January 1. Dubbed the Lachman Fire, it was thought to be extinguished by the Los Angeles Fire Department, but it was rekindled by strong winds on January 7 and became the Palisades Fire.
Background
The windstorm and resulting fire danger were well forecast. On January 1, the Lachman Fire broke out. The Lachman Fire was contained at 4:46 a.m. local time and was limited to only eight acres and did not destroy any structures. The Palisades Fire was later reported to start from a similar spot as to where the Lachman Fire started. On January 2, the National Interagency Fire Center warned that conditions in Southern California fostered "above normal significant fire potential". That same day, local National Weather Service forecasts noted the potential for intense fires and issued a Fire Weather Watch.On January 3, the Storm Prediction Center forecast a critical risk of fire weather that would occur on January 8 and that of January 7 on January 5. By January 7, on the first day of critical fire weather in the area, the SPC forecasted an extremely critical risk for Fire Weather for January 8. Subsequent days since January 9 up to January 15 have had at least a critical fire weather risk issued for Southern California, with January 13–14 having back to back Extremely Critical Fire Risks. On January 17, they issued a Critical Fire Risk for January 20–21, with the former upgraded to Extremely Critical Risk by January 19, the latter also upgraded to Extremely Critical by January 20. Later on January 20, the SPC also forecasted Critical fire weather for January 22–23.
The NWS issued a red flag warning, denoting the most extreme fire danger, for Los Angeles and Ventura counties, calling it a "particularly dangerous situation" that posed high risk to life and property. The warning emphasized that fires could rapidly grow due to powerful winds and low humidity. Southern California had become increasingly arid since late summer 2024, with storm systems predominantly affecting the Pacific Northwest and Northern California instead, as a result of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation shifting from El Niño to La Niña. La Niña conditions had emerged over the tropical Pacific Ocean by December 2024. By late December 2024, most of Los Angeles County had entered moderate drought status, creating heightened fire vulnerability due to desiccated vegetation in what was traditionally the region's wet season.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has been criticized for not using aerial thermal imaging using drones or aircraft to detect any underground smoldering areas after the Lachman Fire. This has been recommended by some as standard protocol for any fires larger than 1 acre. Thermal imaging may have detected smoldering areas underground or under dense vegetation that may eventually rekindle into a new fire. The LAFD was also criticized for not pre-deploying any fire engines to the Palisades area on January 7, despite the NWS issuing an extreme fire danger alert.
Severe drought
Dry vegetation exacerbated the dangerous conditions, with many parts of Southern California experiencing severe drought, the driest start to the rainy season on record, and the driest nine-month period on record before the start of the wind event and subsequent fires.According to a study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, climate change in the region has both increased temperatures and created volatility in rainfall levels. Droughts punctuated by periods of heavy rain, such as the rainy seasons in 2022–23 and 2023–24, result in the sudden growth of grasses, shrubs, and trees that rapidly dry out and remain as fuel for wildfires. Climate change, according to research published in Environmental Research Letters, has made the hot and dry weather more likely to overlap with the offshore wind season, creating favorable conditions for wildfires. Lengthy dry seasons also reduced local water supplies and the number of safe days to carry out controlled burns—which reduce fuel before fire season starts—creating additional challenges for firefighting.
A study conducted by scientists at the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace attributed the intensified fire conditions primarily to anthropogenic climate change with natural climate variability playing a minor role, after determining that meteorological conditions in the impacted areas exhibited marked differences from similar events occurring between 1950 and 1986. These included warmer temperatures of up to 5 °C, precipitation decreases of up to 15%, increases of wind speeds by up to 5 km/h, and urban temperature increases of up to 3 °C. Additionally, as climate change made the wildfire season in California longer, it further overlapped with the season of Santa Ana winds. With these severe drought conditions and exacerbation by climate change, these destructive firestorms are becoming more and more frequent, with California heading towards a year-round fire season. Analysis from Climate Central and World Weather Attribution also found that climate change strongly increased the likelihood of the wildfires by multiple ways.
Winds
The events included Santa Ana winds of exceptional intensity, with forecasted gusts reaching in populated areas of the Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including the San Gabriel Valley and the Los Angeles Basin which in prior wind events had been protected by their lower elevations. Higher elevations were predicted to experience even more extreme conditions, with wind speeds anticipated from. As the jet stream crossed mountain ranges in Southern California from north to south, mountain waves developed, accelerating wind speeds as air descended into the Los Angeles Basin and other nearby lowlands.The NWS Los Angeles office described the windstorm as potentially "life-threatening", predicting that winds would "accelerate to dangerous levels" beginning on the afternoon of January 7, and would last through early January 8 for Southern California. The NWS warned that the "destructive" winds would likely result in widespread power outages and downed trees. It predicted that it would be the region's "most destructive windstorm seen since 2011". By the morning of January 7, the NWS reported wind speeds of on Magic Mountain Truck Trail in Santa Clarita, in Escondido Canyon, and at the Van Nuys Airport. The NWS reported at 6:19 p.m. that the windstorm could become Southern California's strongest wind event of 2025, especially in its valleys. US agency NOAA anticipated that wind speeds would be between. Wind gusts were recorded at on Mount Lukens in the eastern San Gabriel Mountains and at in the Santa Monica Mountains.
On January 11, at 1:06 p.m. PST, the NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard office issued a red flag warning for most Los Angeles and Ventura counties effective from 6 p.m. January 11 to 6 p.m. January 15, citing the re-intensification of Santa Ana winds and continued dry humidity. The office also issued a wind advisory from 7:04 p.m. PST to January 12 at 2 p.m., predicting sustained northeast winds with gusts and isolated gusts. On January 12, the NWS announced a Particularly Dangerous Situation Red Flag Warning from 4 a.m. on January 14 to 12 noon on January 15 for several regions in the Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The PDS warning was issued for predicted damaging northeastern and eastern wind gusts between with continued low humidity conditions, which the report stated could lead to "extreme fire behavior" and "long range spotting".
Human contributing factors
Local firefighting budgets
The budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department, one of several departments fighting the fires, was reduced by $17.6 million, or two percent, for the fiscal year 20242025. On December 4, 2024, LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said that the reduction has "adversely affected the Department's ability to maintain core operations" and that the $7 million reduction in overtime hours "severely limited the Department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies" and affected inspections of residences and brush clearance. After the budget was passed, another $111 million in pay raises and equipment was added, thereby increasing the operating budget from the previous year.Simultaneously, the price and length of delays for firefighting vehicles significantly increased in recent years due to corporate concentration. Multiple major fire departments across the United States are reporting difficulties with acquiring new fire trucks due to price increases.