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The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles in the United States this January is a warning that cannot be ignore, according to a recent report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).
Such disasters are no longer rare. They are becoming common and fast action is needed, the report, titled January 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires: Once-in-a-Generation Events Now Happen Frequently, noted.
The report focused on two fires: the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, which started on January 7, 2025. These fires burned through Los Angeles County, destroying nearly 16,250 structures and directly affected around 41,000 people. Together, they became the second- and third-most destructive wildfires in California’s history. Twenty-nine people lost their lives, and thousands were forced to leave their homes.
Key drivers identified for the fires included vegetation growth followed by dry conditions (hydroclimate whiplash), powerful winds, and human-caused ignitions during critical dry-hot-windy conditions. Climate change exacerbated these conditions.
“Our study highlights the low survival rate of buildings in the January 2025 Los Angeles fires due to compounding impacts of climate-related and direct human factors,” Mojtaba Sadegh, Climate and Wildfire Analytics Lead at UNU-INWEH and lead author of the report was quoted as saying by the website Phys.org.
To stop such tragedies from happening again, UNU-INWEH made several important recommendations:
* Make strong policies to reduce human-caused fires, especially during risky weather.
* Encourage home hardening and defensible space to protect neighbourhoods.
* Manage vegetation carefully to lower fuel for fires.
The report has been published to help governments, planners, and communities understand the real causes of wildfires and take smart, effective action.
“If we don’t act now, these so-called ‘once-in-a-generation’ fires will become our new normal,” said Sadegh.