"One fire appears to have been caused by a spark from old power lines, the other allegedly started by an Uber driver with a fascination with flames. In the end, the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and left 31 people dead. They were the second and third most destructive wildfires in California history - eclipsed only by the Camp fire that leveled the town of Paradise in 2018, destroying more than 18,000 structures and killing at least 85 people."
"One study, published in 2023, said that summer forest fires in California have burned five times the area between 1996 and 2021 compared with the prior 25-year period. "Climate change is contributing to this increase we've seen in fire activity," said John Abatzoglou, professor of climatology at UC Merced, one of the study's co-authors. Climate change adds hazard to the other human factors that often spark massive fires."
One fire appears to have been caused by a spark from old power lines; another allegedly began when an Uber driver with a fascination with flames. Together the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed over 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and left 31 people dead, making them the second- and third-most destructive wildfires in California history after the 2018 Camp Fire. A 2023 study found summer forest fires burned five times more area between 1996 and 2021 than the prior 25 years. Climate change has contributed to larger fires and amplifies human factors such as aging electrical infrastructure, alleged arson, development into fire-prone wildlands, and evacuation and firefighting decisions.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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