The Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and engulfed thousands of homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles in January, stemmed from an earlier blaze ignited by a 29-year-old who appeared to be obsessed with fire, officials said Wednesday morning.
The Palisades fire, along with the Eaton fire, began ravaging large communities in Southern California on the same night, Jan. 7, in what became known collectively as the Los Angeles wildfires.
The causes of California’s most destructive wildfires have varied, from natural events like lightning strikes to human involvement, either intentional or accidental. And in recent years, state officials have scrutinized overhead power lines and electrical equipment because of their role in some of the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfires.
While the causes can vary, experts have warned that fire risks in the western United States have become ever more severe because of climate change, which has intensified drought conditions and wind gusts, and the expansion of urban development into wild lands.
“If there is fuel and there is ignition, you’re going to get fire,” said William Deverell, a professor at the University of Southern California who is leading a project studying the history of wildfires in the western United States. “It’s reasonable to understand that in early 21st-century California, humans create a lot of spark, whether intentionally or not.”
These are the causes of the seven most destructive fires in California history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
1. Camp fire (18,804 structures, 85 deaths)
Official cause: Power lines
The November 2018 wildfire scorched the town of Paradise in Northern California and killed 85 people, making it the deadliest in the state’s history. Officials found that it had been caused by equipment operated by Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility.
Investigators determined that the fire had started after a hook holding a transmission line broke from a nearly 100-year-old tower near Paradise. The California Public Utilities Commission concluded that PG&E had failed to maintain the line despite its location in a forested and fire-prone area.
PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 because of its Camp fire liabilities. The company ultimately agreed to pay $13.5 billion to victims of the fire and pleaded guilty in 2020 to involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp fire.
Butte County, which includes Paradise, has been a hotbed of wildfire activity over the past decade, with fires burning more than 40 percent of the county’s land since 2014, according to a New York Times analysis.
2. Eaton fire (9,413 structures, 19 deaths)
Official cause: Under investigation. Electrical equipment has been blamed in lawsuits.
State and federal officials are still investigating the cause of the deadly January blaze, but numerous parties, including the U.S. government and Los Angeles County, have sued Southern California Edison over the fire.
Executives of the utility company have already acknowledged that its equipment may have sparked the fire, though the case formally remains under investigation. Southern California Edison has started a wildfire compensation program for victims of the Eaton fire.
3. Palisades fire (6,833 structures, 12 deaths)
Official cause: Under investigation. The federal authorities believe the fire was man-made.
Though the federal authorities arrested Jonathan Rinderknecht of Melbourne, Fla., on Wednesday in connection with the Palisades fire, the blaze remains formally under investigation.
Federal officials said that Mr. Rinderknecht had started a brush fire on New Year’s Day that was initially believed to have been extinguished before it reignited on Jan. 7 and was spread quickly by intense winds in the Pacific Palisades area.
4. Tubbs fire (5,636 structures, 22 deaths)
Official cause: Electrical equipment
In October 2017, the Tubbs fire ravaged wine country communities in Sonoma and Napa Counties in Northern California.
For more than a year, victims blamed PG&E equipment for the blaze, but officials determined that it had been started by electrical equipment at a private residence.
Investigators were not able to determine exactly how the private electrical equipment had ignited the blaze because much of it was destroyed in the fire.
The disaster marked the start of a particularly destructive wildfire period in California, and utilities in 2019 began initiating wide-scale power shut-offs in fire-prone areas during dangerous wildfire conditions.
5. Tunnel fire (2,900 structures, 25 deaths)
Official cause: Rekindled fire
A blaze in the hills above Oakland killed 25 people and charred almost 3,000 buildings in October 1991, in what became known as the Tunnel fire. It remained the most destructive wildfire in California history for more than a quarter-century, until the Tubbs fire occurred.
The fire resulted from the rekindling of a small brush fire that was believed to have been extinguished. The cause of that initial fire has never been determined conclusively.
Fire officials at the time batted down suggestions that they had failed to properly monitor the original site and said that no amount of surveillance could have prevented the spread of the fire, which was stoked by intense winds. At the time, some called those winds the Santa Ana winds — gusts of the same type that fanned the flames in Los Angeles decades later — but the Oakland fire spawned a new term, Diablo winds, that is now used in Northern California.
6. Cedar fire (2,820 structures, 15 deaths)
Official cause: Human ignition
In October 2003, a hunter became lost in the forest in San Diego County and started a signal fire in hopes of being spotted and rescued. But the fire quickly grew and wound up consuming 200,000 acres.
Sergio Martinez, the lost hunter, said that he had become desperate after being separated from his hunting partner and did what he had been taught in a hunting course. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to starting an illegal fire.
7. North Complex fire (2,352 structures, 15 deaths)
Official cause: Lightning strike
A spate of wildfires burned through parts of Northern California in August and September 2020, shrouding much of the state in smoke while residents were still living under Covid-19 restrictions.
The most destructive blaze that year was the North Complex fire, which was ignited by a lightning strike in the Plumas National Forest in Butte, Plumas and Yuba Counties, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.