Introduction

This January, tens of thousands of acres burned in Southern California, claiming neighborhoods, businesses, schools, and lives. The devastation began on the morning of January 7, 2025, with the Palisades Fire—the largest of a series of ferocious blazes—followed by the Eaton Fire, which flared up in the evening. Climate experts and fire officials emphasized the role of climate change, citing intense weather conditions as the primary contributor to the unprecedented damage [1]. While the climate undoubtedly increased the volatility of the wildfires, it is essential to also consider the unintended consequences of Los Angeles’s history that resulted in fire-prone communities. The long-standing trend of housing expansion in areas of great fire risk left dense, highly-developed suburbs vulnerable to destruction [2]. Therefore, as Los Angeles (L.A.) rebuilds, the city needs to implement new zoning and housing policies and optimize infrastructure to fire-proof its communities. 

Fueling the Fire: Climate and Weather

Leading up to the disaster, Southern California experienced extreme weather conditions—many induced by climate change—that laid the groundwork for a monstrous inferno. After two years of heavy rainfall and vegetation growth, the L.A. area received less than 0.3 inches of rain from May 1, 2024, until the start of the fires [3]. Additionally, September 2024 yielded a record heat wave that baked Southern California at temperatures 10 to 20 degrees higher than average for the time of year [4]. These two weather anomalies created a hazardous situation, producing dead, dry vegetation that would act as kindling for the inevitable fire. Under most circumstances, it is routine work for fire services to clear this flammable buildup. However, Southern California had a caveat: the appropriate conditions for prescribed burns had been absent since the previous spring, before the region’s dry spell [5]. Both moderate temperatures and adequate humidity are required to conduct effective, safe, and controllable burns [6]. As a result, L.A. and its surrounding cities were sitting ducks for an impending inferno. 

Another dangerous accelerant entered the equation in early January: the Santa Ana wind event. Santa Ana winds are a naturally occurring phenomenon in Southern California that can become catastrophic when coupled with the wrong weather factors. Unfortunately, the wrong weather factors were in place and alongside the abnormally powerful Santa Ana winds, ultimately energized the fires. The hurricane-like winds spread the flames at breakneck speeds and carried embers that sparked new fires. When the winds overlap with the dry seasons, they become much more of a threat [7]. As climate change extends dry seasons into fall and early winter, catastrophic wildfires become a looming possibility rather than an improbable nightmare.

Limited Oversight and Surging Sprawl

Local governments typically have discretion over land use under their jurisdiction, but some limitations exist. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) enforces regulations on public and private land use and specifically reviews the plausible environmental impacts of a proposed development [8]. The act's applications ensure that housing and infrastructure projects do not threaten public goods—such as clean water and air—or indigenous ecology. However, revisions to CEQA have reduced its oversight over time. 

CEQA’s scope was narrowed by the 2015 California Supreme Court case, California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In the ruling, the court determined that CEQA does not require consideration of the effects that existing environmental conditions may have on a project’s residents [9]. In other words, CEQA only mandates the appraisal of a project’s direct environmental implications, ignoring the potential impacts the environment itself may impose. The relaxing of the legal barricade in 2015 gave housing developers and local governments the capacity to easily develop high-risk neighborhoods without assessing the ramifications that could endanger residents. 

The problem of overwhelming suburban sprawl is also indirectly exacerbated by past state legislation that harbored unintended outcomes. In 1988, California voters passed a major insurance reform in the form of Proposition 103, known formally as the Insurance Rate Reduction and Reform Act. The act requires insurers to reduce rates by twenty percent for sectors such as home and auto insurance. Although the legislation was designed to address consumer grievances against the insurance industry, it has indirectly contributed to suburban expansion into fire-prone areas. Since the sizable reduction in homeowners insurance, more Californians have been lured into some extremely high-risk areas [10]. The calculated risk usually involved in setting premiums is a deterrent for prospective homeowners because the high rates associated with dangerous areas decrease affordability and serve as a warning for browsing buyers. Proposition 103 discards this deterrent. Manufactured rates under this legislation instead fuel a positive feedback loop that incentivizes the growth of hazardous suburbs, which then become increasingly hazardous as neighborhoods become larger and denser. Worsening the problem, those who move into dangerous areas are less motivated to protect their homes (e.g. using fire-resistant roofing) because their arbitrarily low rates cover any potential losses [11]. This lack of home protection contributes to fire damage when an inevitable fire breaks out because many of the structures in large neighborhoods have ineffective defenses against the flames. Lower premiums are certainly beneficial to the average consumer, yet L.A.'s answers to the climate and fire crises are not rooted in the promotion of suburban growth. 

What is Los Angeles to Do?

The rebuilding process in L.A. does not merely mean restoring the damage that was done. Both policy and infrastructure revisions will be crucial in securing safer, resilient communities that are adapted to frequent climate catastrophes. In terms of policy, the local government needs to learn from the consequences of the past and develop avenues to support L.A.’s population without overcrowding high-risk suburbs. Infrastructure improvements, such as augmented municipal fire-fighting systems and housing reinforcement, will offer additional support to residents’ safety in the future. 

Smart Policy for Safer Communities

In the early-to-mid-twentieth century, L.A. was designed as a new type of American metropolis. Extensive and complicated highway systems were built to connect suburban neighborhoods, accommodating the rise of automobile culture and facilitating widespread postwar suburbanization. This design differed from the conventions of a typical American city, which usually housed a dense urban nucleus and a developed public transport system. L.A.’s car-centered layout encouraged housing expansion into the region’s wildlands, known as wildland-urban interface (WUI) development. WUI development has been a common practice in Southern California but its key consequence is contributing to an increased fire hazard [12].

Prospective policies should focus on one critical theme: reconciling former development and zoning mistakes. Avoiding perilous overdevelopment in the impacted neighborhoods is the first step to achieving this policy goal. The community of Malibu, one of the world’s wildfire capitals, is an example of how not to rebuild in the coming months. Malibu bears an ecosystem naturally accustomed to frequent blazes. The coastline tends to experience a large fire every two and a half years, while the face of the western Santa Monica Mountains was completely scorched three times in the 1900s [13]. After a fire in the 1950s, President Eisenhower declared Malibu a federal disaster area and subsidized the reconstruction of what became a firebelt suburb [14]. The administration aimed to accommodate victims by providing support via low-interest loans and a loosening of fire codes, but this again led to overdevelopment and compounded the risk in Malibu. Going forward, L.A. must avoid this model at all costs. Restricting immediate post-fire suburban sprawl is the key to preventing the revival of firebelt suburbs, which can be accomplished by limiting WUI development and fostering a new urban landscape. 

To limit WUI development, strict codes must oversee zoning and housing regulations. One such code should require developers to decrease neighborhood density in the damaged communities along the WUI. Reducing density can enhance fire resilience when another fire sparks because additional space can prevent the spread of embers from home to home. To improve resiliency, new fire codes should also include reforms on firebreaks. Firebreaks are perimeters that contain no highly flammable or combustible materials to suppress the advance of a fire. Homes are more susceptible to catching fire if firebreaks are nonexistent or inadequate. Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3074 in 2020 to address this issue after the devastating Paradise Fire. However, the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection failed to write the enforcement regulations that were to take place starting in 2023 [15]. Many houses would have been at lower risk if homeowners had been mandated to comply. Although it cannot be determined how many homes would have been saved, it is probable that firebreaks would have made a noticeable difference [16]. Therefore, L.A. and the state as a whole ought to commit to expanding and policing firebreaks in at-risk residential zones because of their importance in protecting homes near the wildlands. Despite its benefits, this proposal raises a concern about how L.A. can support its population. 

The city should pursue urban infill in conjunction with suburban de-densification to counter mass displacement and maintain the inhibition of suburban sprawl. Infill is the process of developing underutilized or vacant lots, such as aging and abandoned malls. The local government can coordinate with developers to establish large housing projects that make use of L.A.’s underutilized land to provide housing for those displaced by one of the fires. Reducing suburban housing density and bolstering firebreaks would correct one of CEQA’s critical flaws—its failure to account for the environment’s impact on residents. As a result, L.A. would take one necessary step to avoid reverting to the cyclical overdevelopment of firebelt suburbs. 

Infrastructure Designed to Defend

An infrastructure overhaul is the second piece for solving the city’s puzzle. A significant concern during the first few days of the fires was the reported difficulty firefighters faced with municipal fire hydrants. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass pronounced that 20 percent of hydrants used in the initial firefighting efforts ran dry, although this had more to do with the unprecedented demand for water rather than the hydrants themselves [17]. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had a three million-gallon supply when the Palisades fire began, but the demand was four times greater than anything the water system had ever experienced [18].  A recent assessment indicates that hydrants in the Palisades were inadequate. Dozens of outdated hydrants with single 2.5-inch outlets were all that some firefighters on the ground had to work with—as opposed to modern hydrants with at least two four-inch outlets [19]. It remains uncertain whether or not an improved system would have effectively aided the firefighters’ effort given the ferocity of the Santa Ana winds, but replacing substandard units is imperative for the future. The city must conduct a review throughout its jurisdiction, augmenting all antiquated fire hydrants, to grant firefighters greater capabilities to fight the frequent, climate-induced fires. Further infrastructural improvements are integral to a successful fire-resistant overhaul.

Stringent building standards for new housing projects need to accompany reconstruction in decimated communities. Suburban de-densification and firebreaks are aimed at preventing the spread of fire across multiple homes. However, if a blaze reaches the vicinity homes need to be equipped with proper protection. New building codes are required to secure these protections. Integrating fire-resistant materials such as concrete, steel, and fire-retardant-treated wood, will remedy the vulnerability of many L.A. buildings that were previously built with flammable wood and asphalt shingles [20].  Such a code resolves the collective action problem present in home protection caused by Proposition 103’s artificially low insurance rates. Homeowners who lack the incentive to protect their homes based on the coverage of their low premiums would no longer pose a threat to neighborhood safety if the necessary fire defenses were built in. With stronger homes and a fortified firefighting system, L.A. can build safer, more resilient communities.

Conclusion

The wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles in January serve as a devastating reminder of the need to adapt to climate change and remedy the mistakes of the past. Extreme weather conditions were key in fanning the embers into treacherous infernos, but decades of development patterns and consequential policy decisions unmistakably contributed to the disaster. To ensure the safety of L.A. residents going forward, the rebuilding process must be centered around resilience rather than simple restoration. Stricter regulations on zoning to limit risky WUI development and investment in the appropriate infrastructure are vital for the city to address the hostile cycle of destruction and reconstruction that plagues Southern California. As climate change results in more frequent and intense wildfires, L.A. must seize the opportunity to redefine its urban and suburban landscapes, defending its inhabitants and their property.