LA Wildfires Fully Contained After 3 Weeks of Burning Devastation

Last updated on February 3rd, 2025 at 05:42 pm

About 30 people were killed and thousands more were displaced by two destructive wildfires in Los Angeles that burned for more than three weeks before firefighters declared them completely contained on Friday. The precise cause of the two wildfires which began on January 7th is still being investigated.

Over 37,000 acres (150 square kilometers) and over 10,000 residences were destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California’s Los Angeles County which caused damage estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. These fires were the most damaging in the history of the second largest US metropolis. 

On Friday “Cal Fire” the state’s firefighting agency updated the statistics on its website to indicate that both fires were 100% contained meaning that their perimeters were fully under control. Earlier when the fires were not a major threat for days evacuation orders were changed.

However, a research released this week found that human induced climate change paved the way for the infernos by decreasing rainfall, drying up vegetation and increasing the risky overlap between flammable drought conditions and strong Santa Ana winds.

Dozens of researchers came to the conclusion that the conditions causing the fires were about 35% more likely as a result of global warming brought on by the use of fossil fuels.

Over the course of more than three weeks, the two fires destroyed hundreds of buildings in the Altadena hamlet in Los Angeles County and the upscale Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles and Malibu forcing thousands of inhabitants to leave their homes.

“Our recovery effort is based around getting people back home to rebuild as quickly and safely as possible,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Friday. “We are making sure that the Palisades will be safe as residents access their properties.”

Jim McDonnell, the city police chief, stated that there would be “more than 10 times” as many police officers in the area as there were prior to the fires. The damage and economic loss have been projected to be between $250 billion and $275 billion by the private weather company AccuWeather.