How the Ferocious Santa Ana Winds Are Fueling the Palisades Fire
The nature of the Santa Ana winds makes them perfectly suited to spreading flames. The destructive Palisades Fire is the latest example
The Palisades Fire on January 7, 2025.
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Another explosive wildfire has erupted in California—igniting buildings and sending residents fleeing. Wildly driven by the region’s notorious Santa Ana winds, the Palisades Fire began at 10:30 A.M. local time on Tuesday near Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, much of which is under evacuation orders. As of Wednesday morning, the fire had scorched nearly 3,000 acres and evacuation orders had extended to Santa Monica.
Forecasters had warned that the risk of fire was extremely high this week, reaching “particularly dangerous situation” status as the ferocious winds combined with tinder-dry vegetation after a lack of rain during the beginning of what would usually be the wet season.
Gusts around the Palisades Fire were measured in the range of 40 to 50 miles per hour as of Tuesday afternoon, climate scientist Daniel Swain said during one of his regular “virtual climate and weather office hours,” hosted on YouTube. “Right now the winds are not extremely high, but again, they’re high enough,” said Swain, who is at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Gusts were expected to reach 70 to 80 mph as the winds would peak on Tuesday night into Wednesday, with some places potentially seeing gusts as high as 100 mph.
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The Santa Ana winds are additionally funneled through narrow mountain canyons, which causes them to speed up. The hot, dry and fast nature of these winds makes them perfectly suited to spreading flames from any spark that ignites. The winds blow embers well ahead of the fire front, starting new spot fires. “Those embers are going to follow the wind and burn whatever they want,” Swain said in another video on YouTube.
Two other fires ignited overnight, the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., just north of Los Angeles, which has burned more than 2,000 acres as of early Wednesday morning, and the Hurst Fire, which has burned 500 acres in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley. Evacuations have been ordered for all three fires.
On Tuesday Traci Park, the Los Angeles City Council member whose district includes Pacific Palisades, said the fires would likely burn hundreds of buildings, according to the New York Times. “This is going to be devastating, a devastating loss, for all of Los Angeles,” she said. Officials have reported at least two deaths and numerous injuries from the blazes.
The Palisades Fire reportedly burned vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, “but no structures are on fire, and staff and the collection remain safe,” the museum said on its account on X (formerly Twitter). The museum will be closed through January 13. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was closed on Wednesday because of the Eaton Fire. The facility is located in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif., which is under an evacuation order.
Editor’s Note (1/8/24): This article was edited after posting to include updates about the fires.
Andrea Thompson is an associate editor covering the environment, energy and earth sciences. She has been covering these issues for 16 years. Prior to joining Scientific American, she was a senior writer covering climate science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where she primarily covered earth science and the environment. She has moderated panels, including as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Media Zone, and appeared in radio and television interviews on major networks. She holds a graduate degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University, as well as a B.S. and an M.S. in atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Follow Thompson on Bluesky @andreatweather.bsky.social
Source: www.scientificamerican.com