Health & Environment

Los Angeles Fires Demonstrate Rising Threat Of Wildfires In Urban Areas

As cities expand further into natural areas, a unique set of firefighting and disaster preparedness challenges has emerged, Texas A&M experts say.
By Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications January 14, 2025

A photo showing a cluster of homes burned to the ground by wildfires. In the background, several large, intact buildings can be seen next to the Pacific Ocean.
A view of destroyed homes as the Palisades Fire continues to burn with wildfires causing damage and loss through Los Angeles County on January 10, 2025 in Pacific Palisades, California.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

 

As the deadly wildfires that began last week in Southern California continue to threaten communities in and around Los Angeles, startling images of entire neighborhoods in ruins are highlighting the growing danger that these fires pose to urban and residential areas.

Firefighters are struggling to contain the powerful blazes, which have burned through more than 60 square miles of land, torching 12,000 structures and killing at least 24 people. Some analysts predict that the fires will ultimately be the costliest in U.S. history, with one preliminary estimate placing the current damage and economic loss somewhere between $135 billion and $150 billion.

To understand the unprecedented devastation and the unique challenge of mitigating wildfires in urban areas, Texas A&M Today spoke with two experts from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning in the Texas A&M University College of Architecture. Dr. Siyu Yu and Dr. Matthew Malecha study community resilience to fires and other natural hazards, with an emphasis on land use and emergency planning. Both serve as faculty fellows with the college’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center.

What does the situation in California tell us about the growing threat of wildfires in urban and residential areas?

Malecha: Wildfire is a growing threat to urban areas, in large part due to the continued expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the term for places where the built environment encroaches into more natural areas. WUI areas are often (though not only) located at the periphery of metropolitan areas in sprawling suburbs and “exurbs” and are typically developed at lower densities (more land per housing unit) than more traditional urban areas. Structures in WUI areas are especially vulnerable to wildfire because they are surrounded by natural (often fire-prone) vegetation, and lower densities present challenges for firefighter and emergency management personnel. Because buildings can also burn and become fuel sources, wildfires that start in the WUI can spread to denser urban areas.

Yu: Recent trends and climate forecasts suggest a more wildfire-prone future for much of the U.S. West and South, with longer periods of drought and high temperatures increasing the duration of the fire season in many places. Continued and rapid urban expansion into grasslands and timberlands across the region heightens risk by increasing the population and extent of the built environment in WUI hazard areas, with more communities experiencing devastating losses when a wildfire occurs. Suburban developments, particularly residential neighborhoods within WUI areas, are especially vulnerable to wildfire hazards.

What are some of the unique challenges of preventing and fighting wildfires in these populated areas?

Yu: Continued population growth and development will enlarge the WUI and place more people and structures in harm’s way. These increasing environmental and physical vulnerabilities coincide with growing concerns about the capacity of the emergency management and planning professions, which can reduce hazard preparedness. Together, a challenging “new normal” is developing for wildfire hazard management.

a photo of a firefighter spraying water on a row of burning buildings as cars pass by on the adjacent street
A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire while it burns homes at Pacific Coast Highway amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Apu Gomes/Getty Images

 

Malecha: The abundance of structures and population that are potentially in harm’s way in urban areas can overwhelm existing firefighting capacity during wildfire events. Urban firefighting departments are typically focused on more frequent, smaller-scale fire events, rather than the comparatively rare large-scale events. Strong coordination is thus required when large-scale events occur.

In addition, large fires can spread in several ways in urban areas, including house-to-house radiant heat exposure and via wind-driven flying embers, which adds a level of unpredictably. Depending on the conditions, burning embers can travel a long distance (several miles) on the wind, making new ignitions difficult to predict, and the fires difficult to control. Added to this, many of the larger-scale techniques for fighting wildland fires, including aerial support, are less viable in urban areas.  Finally, with more people in harm’s way, evacuation can also be a major challenge in highly populated areas.

What steps can communities take to plan for and mitigate future fire-related hazards?

Yu: Developing and adopting Hazard Mitigation Plans and Community Wildfire Protection Plans to reduce wildfire risk through smart land use decisions will help to enhance wildfire resilience and mitigate future fire-related hazards. Identifying and effectively addressing gaps and shortfalls exist in planning policy, building, and land use regulation, and design considerations will help to protect residents, property and other community resources and assets from wildland fire threats.

To effectively meet growing wildfire challenges, the next generation of emergency managers and urban planners will need to improve integration across professions, requiring new planning processes and new training and learning methods that enhance communication and action.

Malecha: Few places are truly immune to wildfire, but, as with most natural hazards, a wildfire’s impact is as much a matter of decisions we make about where and how to build as it is about the hazard itself. Growth and development should be guided by plans and development policies that incorporate an awareness of the very real risk of wildfire, using it to inform land use, siting and building codes that mitigate, rather than exacerbate, the risk of wildfire. Wildfire risk can be lowered, for instance, by avoiding the most hazard-prone locations — maps of varying degrees of wildfire risk are publicly available for decisionmakers and residents — and building in ways that minimize the likelihood of ignition (via burning embers or radiant heat). Authoritative information about best practices for “home hardening,” including for building materials and property design and management, are widely available. These should be incorporated as much as possible in community plans and ordinances. 

a photo of a plane dropping a cloud of reddish-pink substance on houses situated in the mountains of Southern California
A person watches from a balcony as a firefighting aircraft drops the fire retardant Phos-Chek near homes during the Palisades Fire as wildfires cause damage and loss through Los Angeles County on January 10, 2025 in Topanga, California.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

 

What else should people know about wildfires in residential and urban areas?

Malecha: Though wildfire is not often front-of-mind for many folks in (especially eastern) Texas when it comes to natural hazards, it is an important and growing threat that deserves greater attention — especially as the climate continues to change. Periods of drought intermixed with wetter periods set the stage for larger and more destructive fires. Foliage thrives during wetter periods but then dies out and becomes additional kindling during drier periods. The human decision-making element is also critical, however, as unabated and poorly controlled development in the WUI exacerbates the issue by placing more structures and people in harm’s way. Going forward, we need to be smarter about where and how we grow our communities.

Yu: I am the principal investigator for a NSF FIRE-PLAN project and a faculty fellow with the College of Architecture’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center (HRRC). This project develops plans to investigate the impacts of wildland fire in the growing WUI in the Southern United States and contributes to the understanding of the unique dynamics in this critical zone. The project uses a stakeholder-driven approach to collate data and resources as a foundation for continued scientific investigation of increasingly prominent yet still insufficiently understood issues surrounding wildfire hazards and human settlement.

Our team (Dr. Siyu Yu, Dr. Matt Malecha, and Jaimie Masterson) at Texas A&M developed the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard (PIRS) for multi-hazards (including wildfire, flooding and extreme heat) methods. PIRS helps communities spatially evaluate their networks of plans to reduce hazard vulnerability and protect the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities.

Media contact: Darren Benson, [email protected]

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