Good morning. Since Tuesday morning, a series of devastating wildfires have spread rapidly through the Los Angeles area in California. Amid winds of up to 100mph and in very dry weather, the blazes have spread rapidly in neighbourhoods from the Pacific Palisades to the Hollywood Hills.
At least five people have been killed, more than 130,000 forced to evacuate, and more than 25,000 acres of land have burned. In some areas, firefighters have used up water from hydrants faster than supplies can be refilled. The emergency intensified overnight, with the Palisades fire now described as the most destructive in Los Angeles’ history.
Wildfires are common in California – but rarely in densely populated metropolitan areas like these. And they have become significantly more dangerous in recent years because of the climate crisis. You can follow the latest on the Guardian’s live blog. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Gabrielle Canon, extreme weather correspondent for Guardian US, about the damage wrought in the last two days – and what it tells us about the likely pattern in the future. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Social media | Sweeping changes to the policing of Meta’s social media platforms have set the tech company on a collision course with legislators in the UK and the European Union, experts and political figures have said.
Economy | Rachel Reeves took the rare step of issuing a public statement for the second successive day on Wednesday, insisting she has an “iron grip” on the public finances, as the sell-off in bond markets intensified. The cost of 10-year government borrowing hit its highest level since the global financial crisis in 2008.
UK politics | Cabinet ministers have ramped up attacks on Conservative “bandwagon jumping” over child rape gangs during furious exchanges in the Commons as the government saw off a Tory attempt to force a new inquiry. After a sometimes bitter debate, the Conservative amendment was defeated by 364 votes to 111.
Greenland | Germany and France have warned Donald Trump against any attempt to “move borders by force” after the incoming US president said he was prepared to use economic tariffs or military might to seize control of Danish-administered Greenland.
UK news | A 14-year-old boy who was stabbed to death on a London bus has been named by his mother as Kelyan Bokassa. Kelyan was travelling on a 472 bus to Abbey Wood when he was attacked on Tuesday afternoon.
In depth: An ‘urban conflagration’
Gabrielle Canon spent yesterday reporting near Pacific Palisades, where even people who have lived through many previous fires were stunned by the gravity of the situation. You can read her dispatch here. “It’s utter devastation here,” she said. “The iconic stretch of the Pacific Coast highway between Santa Monica and Malibu is unrecognisable.”
“People aren’t strangers to the risks,” she added. “But this fire is just laying siege to these communities, and we’re seeing major structural loss in places we haven’t for a very long time. This is going to be a catastrophic event.” California governor Gavin Newsom has called the devastation wrought by the fires “unprecedented” in the state’s history.
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Where are the fires burning?
On Tuesday morning the Palisades fire started near a nature reserve between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu. It grew from 20 acres to 200 acres in 20 minutes, and now covers 16,000 acres, including much of the residential Pacific Palisades neighbourhood. It is 0% contained.
Later that day, to the east, the Eaton fire started in Eaton Canyon, in Altadena, growing to cover 10,000 acres, and leaving five people dead. It is 0% contained. The Hurst fire to the north of San Fernando started to burn in the evening, and spread to 850 acres by Wednesday evening. It is now 10% contained.
New fires broke out on Wednesday: two in Ventura County and Woodley Park have now been contained. The Lidia fire, in a mountainous area to the north of the city, grew to 350 acres and has been 40% contained. The Sunset fire in the Hollywood Hills has spread to 60 acres since it broke out at 6pm local time; the most recent update from officials a couple of hours ago said that it was 0% contained. Witnesses there described scenes of chaos as people tried to flee amid gridlocked traffic on roads in an evacuation zone between Hollywood Boulevard and Mulholland Drive.
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What kind of damage has been caused so far?
As well as the five deaths reported, tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes. So far, at least 2,000 homes, buildings and other businesses have been damaged or destroyed, with celebrities including Billy Crystal and Paris Hilton among those who have lost their homes. Many thousands more are under threat, and more than 450,000 people are without power. Accuweather, a commercial weather forecasting service, estimated the economic losses at up to $57bn (£46bn) so far. These before and after satellite images give a sense of the destruction.
Gabrielle spoke to firefighters who said that in the Pacific Pallisades area, about four out of five houses they had seen had been destroyed, even though many residents have invested in protecting their homes to meet insurance requirements.
“A lot of it came down to luck but construction also played a big part,” she said. “The firefighters saw a lot of properties where vegetation management hadn’t been done and that helped the fire spread.”
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Why is California so vulnerable to wildfires?
The state has several features that make it highly vulnerable to wildfire spread. The climate is warm and dry, and those conditions are exacerbated at this time of year by the arrival of the Santa Ana winds, which bring dry air from the east, drying out plant matter and making it more likely to burn.
As a result of those winds, fires from October to April spread much more rapidly and do much more damage than those in the summer months, when fires tend to be inland and in unpopulated forest areas.
Then there is the fact that the state’s large population means that there are lots of opportunities for someone to drop a cigarette butt, leave a campfire unattended, or even set off a smoke bomb at a gender-reveal party. And, as the New York Times explains, a century or more of deliberately suppressing fires has left a lot of potential plants to burn, a strategy that has been reversed elsewhere in the state in recent years with “controlled” burns to avoid exacerbating the problem.
In southern California, though, “healthy burning” is much less helpful as a mitigation than it would be in forest regions. “You can’t do the same burning and thinning,” Gabrielle said. “There are more people now living in areas that wouldn’t have been at risk before where you could now see a whole community burning down.”
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Why are the fires so hard to bring under control?
The primary mechanism of such out-of-control spread is to do with the Santa Ana winds: embers are lifted by the convection caused by the heat, then caught on the wind and blown on to dry ground, where they quickly ignite and start a fire in a new area. That effect compounds quickly. This National Geographic piece from 2020 notes that about 90% of homes and buildings ignited during a wildfire are lit by embers.
“Wind-driven fires are incredibly hard to get under control,” Gabrielle said. “They become really volatile really fast. That’s true even when there’s not a whole lot to feed on, and it’s wild to see how far these things can jump – it used to be that a highway would be a firebreak, but that isn’t always the case now.”
That is a shift that has happened over the last decade as fires have burned more intensely and winds have sometimes become more extreme. “It’s even more complicated because some of these areas have incredibly dry fields very close to home. You’re seeing forest or grass fires becoming an urban conflagration.”
Another challenge for firefighters has been that aircraft were not initially able to take off because of strong winds, limiting them to tackling the blazes on the ground – although an aerial response is now underway. “You’re not going to see the full scale aerial attack that we’d get in a fire driven by fuel which is a bit less chaotic,” Gabrielle said. “Initially, firefighters were stationed inside communities trying to protect as many homes as they can, trying to contain it, and trying to get people out.”
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Has global heating contributed to the risk?
It is not possible to definitively link a specific weather event to climate change, but a study published in 2023 found that the size of the areas burned each summer in northern and central California increased five-fold in 1996-2021 against 1971-1995.
Almost all of that change was due to human-caused climate change, the study concluded. A separate study, also published in 2023, found that the climate crisis had increased the risk of fast-spreading fires in California by about 25%.
“Climate change is playing a huge role in all of this,” Gabrielle said. “Evaporative demand, where the heat bakes the moisture out of the ground, makes fire more likely to spread. And scientists are looking at the ways that the Santa Ana winds will change.”
Typically, the peak wildfire season ends in late autumn or winter, as the weather changes and spells of rain soak the ground and plants. But there has been just a quarter-inch of rain in the last eight months in southern California, leaving the ground tinder dry – following a summer of record-breaking temperatures. Newsom said yesterday: “This time of year traditionally has not been fire season, but now, we disabuse any notion that there is a season. It’s year-round in the state of California.”
What else we’ve been reading
“No one wanted to go inside – but we had no choice” – Diane Taylor reports on life – and death – aboard the Bibby Stockholm (pictured above) and hears from former occupants, as the ship used to detain asylum seekers is taken out of commission. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters
After the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, some mainstream politicians pulled their punches in their descriptions of his impact on France. Paul Taylor writes that that is a reflection of the new status quo – and that his death may help clear the stage for his daughter Marine and National Rally. Archie
Kate McCusker investigates “the Great Beigeification”, and the people who make the interesting decision to intentionally devoid their homes of colour. Charlie
Victor Pelevin made his name as a novelist in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism – but now, as his literary peers have faced censorship, he still sells millions. Sophie Pinkham’s long read investigates whether he has become a Kremlin apologist. Archie
Coco Khan ponders the rise of couples sleeping separately and asks whether it could be the secret to a long, happy relationship. Like her, I am instinctively “Team Same Bed” – but then again I am the snorer ... Charlie
Sport
Football | Sweden midfielder Lucas Bergvall’s 86th-minute goal gave Tottenham a 1-0 win against Liverpool in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final. In a dramatic tie, Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky excelled on his debut.
Athletics | UK Athletics has been charged with corporate manslaughter over the death of a Paralympian who was hit on the head by a metal pole during the London World Para Athletics Championships in 2017.
Football | West Ham have appointed Graham Potter as their manager after ending days of uncertainty by firing Julen Lopetegui. The shake-up could also lead to the departure of the technical director, Tim Steidten.
The front pages
“Mass evacuations in Los Angeles as deadly wildfires wreak havoc” is the Guardian’s splash, as California grapples with devastating wildfires.
“Groomed by gangs…now he is dead,” says the Mirror, of a 14-year-old boy stabbed to death on a London bus.” At the i, the lead story is “Reeves faces extra tax rises or cutting public services, as UK’s borrowing costs turn toxic,” while the Telegraph splashes with “Treasury steps in to halt market mayhem,” and the Mail: “Market turmoil sounds red alert for Chancellor.”
“It’s blindingly obvious we need a care plan’, writes the Express. Meanwhile, “Europe’s leaders warn Trump against meddling with its sovereign borders,” says the FT. “Take back Isis Britons says Trump terror chief,” says the Times, while the Star warns: “Don’t eat Xmas trees.”
Today in Focus
Elon Musk’s political evolution
James Ball, journalist and author of The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World, speaks to Michael Safi about the political influence of Elon Musk
Cartoon of the day | Nicola Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
When you’re on the streets, you have to sleep with one eye open in case people try to steal your things, so you end up being on alert 24 hours a day,” says Jerry Spencer of the years he spent sleeping rough and dealing with drug addiction.
In 2021 he finally made it off the streets and got clean. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and found Shepherd’s Star, a charity that helps vulnerable people. “Since I was so early in my recovery, I needed something to keep me busy and something to look forward to, so I signed up for their six-week course to learn some new skills,” Spencer recounts in the series A moment that changed me.
He found that focus in gardening, an interest early in his life that was rekindled during a trip through the course to Kew Gardens, in London. Now he’s a regular fixture at Kew as a volunteer, often found at the allotment or watering plants. Spencer takes life day by day and says: “I feel so lucky to have found Kew as my therapy and safe space.”
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
