In California and elsewhere, fast-moving fires are particularly damaging and expensive because they take people by surprise, making evacuations difficult
Strong winds blow embers as the Palisades Fire burns homes on the Pacific Coast Highway amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. The fast-moving wildfire has grown to more than 2900-acres and is threatening homes in the coastal neighborhood amid intense Santa Ana Winds and dry conditions in Southern California.
That’s alarming, Balch says, because such fires are actually the most destructive. Though large fires often get more attention, speed matters more than size when it comes to damage. Balch and her colleagues found that 78 percent of structures destroyed in fires in the U.S. in the first two decades of the 21st century burned in fast-moving fires.
The largest of the fires, the Palisades Fire, has burned more than 15,000 acres since it started on Tuesday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Eaton Fire is close behind: it has burned 10,600 acres since Tuesday. Two more blazes, the Hurst and Woodley Fires, also ignited on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, and have collectively burned more than 700 acres, with most of that figure attributed to the Hurst Fire.
With fires driven by winds such as the Santa Anas—which gusted at nearly 90 miles per hour in southern California on Tuesday night—embers are blown far out ahead of the fast-moving fire front, igniting new fires faster than they can be extinguished. These embers are what spell disaster for homes, says Yana Valachovic, county director for the University of California Cooperative Extension in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.
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