What was the cause of the Pacific Palisades fire?
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New Year’s Eve fireworks could be to blame, although authorities have not yet definitively ruled out arson. As Los Angeles firefighters continue to battle the January wildfires that have laid siege to southern California for almost a week, attention is beginning to turn to what exactly ignited the blazes.
![[People flee the advancing Palisades Fire by car and on foot]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/13/03/California_Wildfires_30418.jpg)
The fires have so far killed at least 24 people, destroyed some 12,000 homes, scorched 40,000 acres of ground and forced the mass evacuation of residents, as emergency responders, including the National Guard, fight to bring the flames under control and restore order.
The first and biggest of the infernos to erupt commenced on Tuesday January 7 and became known as the Palisades Fire after it tore through the affluent neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, home to many Hollywood celebrities and famous faces. The newspaper’s findings indicate the area’s strong Santa Ana winds may have served to reignite that fire after it lay smouldering undetected underground or within wood in the week after it was first put out, whipping it up into the much larger disaster that ensued.
The Post said its analysis “showed that the new fire started in the vicinity of the old fire, raising the possibility that the New Year’s Eve fire was reignited, which can occur in windy conditions, experts said”. It explained that it had reached its conclusion after reviewing photographs, videos and false-color satellite imagery to trace the burn scar left by the New Year’s blaze along the Temescal Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains, as well as eye-witness interviews with residents and archived radio transmissions between emergency responders.
