Los Angeles is no stranger to wildfires. With a long history of destructive blazes, the region has some of the toughest wildfire policies in the country.
Still, driven by powerful winds, the fires burning across the region quickly became almost impossible to contain. Flammable brush, dried out by lack of rain and hotter temperatures, was ready to burn. So were densely packed houses, which spread the flames into urban areas.
Los Angeles has one of the most experienced fire fighting forces in the country and the region has adopted wildfire policies that many other states haven't. Some Republican leaders have called for withholding federal aid to fire victims for what they call "mismanagement" of wildfire policy.
"They've encouraged people to build multimillion, billion dollar homes and complexes in very vulnerable areas," Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson told NPR, also calling for residents to use "tile roofs." Los Angeles County already has strict wildfire building codes for homes and has passed rules that limit new development in wildfire-prone areas.
Still, the ferocity of the fires exceeded what firefighters could manage. And the disaster has exposed holes in the region's preparations to reduce the chances of fires getting so unmanageable and to keep communities safer. Some shortfalls are common to almost all fire-prone communities in the Western U.S. But in some cases, the L.A. region has been slow to adopt the comprehensive planning tools that other communities already use.
Fire experts say the heavy toll offers lessons for other communities around the country that haven't taken the steps that California has – and for Los Angeles itself when it rebuilds from these fires. Studies show that these kinds of explosive fires are getting more common as temperatures rise with climate change. A recent analysis by scientists at UCLA found that climate change made the region's vegetation roughly 25 percent drier prior to these fires.
"California is doing the most, but they have the highest risks to deal with," says Michael Gollner, associate professor of engineering at UC Berkeley who studies fire risk. "Where we're really going to see an impact is what we do before the fire, just to make communities safer and so that they're not going to burn down."
What L.A. is doing right: limiting parking on high wind days
Many neighborhoods around Los Angeles are known for their rugged beauty, with houses tucked into rolling hillsides and steep canyons. The roads are often winding and narrow, constructed decades ago before modern fire codes required widening them.
That means during fast-moving fires, fire engines can have trouble accessing those neighborhoods, especially when cars are parked on the street. It also limits the flow of cars when residents are evacuating, leading to traffic jams that have resulted in people dying in previous fires.
It's why the Los Angeles Fire Department has set up special parking restrictions. On "red flag days," when high winds trigger a formal alert from forecasters warning of fire danger, street parking is restricted on roads with tight curves, narrow lanes, or in key intersections. Special signs mark the curb, and residents must check whether the restrictions are in effect, or risk a ticket. Some Southern California neighborhoods have taken this even farther, limiting street parking for fire reasons all the time.
What L.A. is doing right: requiring homeowners to clear flammable brush
Landowners in the most-fire prone regions of Los Angeles are accustomed to getting a notice in the mail every year. It's a reminder about defensible space rules – the requirements to manage the vegetation around a home to reduce the chance that it ignites.
The reason is embers. High winds can carry small bits of burning debris for more than a mile, which are responsible for the rapid spread of a fire. When they get caught in a tree, bush or a pile of dry leaves in a gutter, they ignite fires far from the wall of advancing flames.
Local governments in the L.A. region have adopted defensible space rules similar to those that apply statewide in California's fire-prone areas. Large bushes must be spaced apart, gutters must be clear of debris, and trees shouldn't be touching the house. In other extreme wildfires, these precautions have been shown to help save homes.
"If a fire does happen and it's ten times less likely for something to ignite, think of the impact firefighters will have on that fire," Gollner says. "They're not juggling 20 houses burning in this small area, they're juggling two. Now they can actually put that out."
To ensure homeowners comply, fire inspectors visit homes to check. In 2022, Los Angeles County fire officials did more than 58,000 inspections. If a homeowner fails to complete the work after two inspections, the Los Angeles Fire Department levies a fine of more than $2,000 and then hires a contractor to do the brush clearance. The homeowner is also responsible for the cost of the contractor's work.
Many Western states prone to wildfire lack this level of enforcement, relying instead on voluntary guidelines or public education campaigns. The problem, fire experts warn, is that entire communities need to create defensible space to make it effective. Even a homeowner who does everything right is still vulnerable, if their neighbor has dense brush and overgrown trees.
Still, even California's pioneering rules on defensible space have been shown to fall short. Research has found the most crucial area to protect a home is within 5 feet of the structure. So in 2020, state lawmakers passed a bill to create an "ember-resistant zone" within five feet of a house, which is known as "Zone 0." State fire officials are still drafting the rules, which are expected to severely limit or eliminate all vegetation next to a house for the first time.
Fire officials have already heard strong pushback from the public, since many homeowners have established greenery outside their windows they don't want to part with. After several years of delay, the rules are not yet in effect for existing homes and are expected to begin in 2026.
What could be improved: there are tough building codes for homes, but only new ones
As much as the vegetation around a home matters, so does the house itself. Wood roofs and siding pose a fire risk, as well as the eaves on the roofline and wooden decks and fences that touch the house. Experts have built homes and burned them down to test these building materials.
Even in the 1960s, Los Angeles knew its housing stock made it vulnerable. After the Bel Air fire in 1961, the Los Angeles Fire Department released a documentary that blamed "combustible-roofed houses, closely spaced, and brush-covered canyons and ridges, serviced by narrow roads," calling it a "design for disaster."
In 1989, Los Angeles banned new wood roofs, making it the first major city to do so. The move was challenged by the Cedar Shake and Shingle Bureau, which sued to stop it. California's toughest building codes for wildfire-prone areas began in 2008, known as "chapter 7a." New construction is required to use fire-resistant roofs and siding, as well as other protective strategies, like putting small mesh screens over attic vents to prevent embers from getting into a house and starting a fire inside.
Still, the vast majority of Los Angeles's housing was built before the wildfire building codes were established, meaning many houses are more susceptible to fires. California has begun a grant program to help with home hardening, as it's known, in a handful of counties. But the demand is greater than local and state grant programs can meet.
"It's a couple homes here and there," Gollner says. "We need to do this on a mass scale. This is a really hard social problem and what you do impacts your neighbor."
What could be improved: slowing urban sprawl in fire-prone areas
The Woolsey Fire in 2018 was another fast-moving fire, spurred by winds, eventually destroying more than 1,600 hundred buildings. In the aftermath, experts analyzed what Los Angeles County could do better, as it sets land use policy for more than a million people who live in communities outside Los Angeles city limits.
They found that for decades, growth had been encouraged in areas with the highest risk of wildfire. That policy had already shifted, but an analysis found the county should go even further to discourage any increases in density in those areas, given how many structures are already at risk.
"If you were to ask me a week ago: how does L.A. County fare in relation to other places, I would have said they're really high," says Molly Mowery, executive director of the Community Wildfire Planning Center, who worked on the report. "They're doing a lot, but there were conditions in place with the existing development that are hard for any community."
Los Angeles County already has rules that prohibit new subdivisions from being built in high fire risk zones, unless they meet conditions for providing adequate evacuation routes and water supply, as well as using fire-resistant building materials. County officials are expected to consider a new ordinance soon that would add even more requirements for new homes in those areas.
What could be improved: doing a community-wide wildfire plan
As wildfires have taken an increasing toll, some communities have stepped up their planning efforts throughout the West. Many write Community Wildfire Protection Plans, a comprehensive analysis of the wildfire risk and the ways to help reduce that risk. Plans look at who is vulnerable and list potential projects to help prepare homes and make evacuations more effective.
The community plans are not mandatory, nor do they come with funding, but they provide a detailed look at all aspects of wildfire preparation. The federal government also has dedicated grants for projects specifically outlined in the community plans.
Still, neither the city nor county governments in Los Angeles have a plan as of now. Both are in the process of writing them for the first time.
"The need is that with so many different large, labyrinthian agencies and community groups of different sizes, getting everybody on the same page and to agree on what needs to happen will create a much higher level of safety preparedness, resilience, and ability to respond and recover," says Chris Nevil of MySafe:LA, a non-profit partnering with the Los Angeles Fire Department to write the community plan.
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