The cause of the Palisades Fire, which swept down a slope a week ago, killing at least eight people and engulfing entire villages, is still unknown.
When the answers are revealed, they will probably be located on a blackened and scorched ridgeline in western Los Angeles that looks out over a community in the Pacific Palisades that has a well-known hiking trail. Six days prior, this region had been the site of a small fire.
Being aware of the disastrous Investigators started by gathering footage and photos from neighboring residences and social media, speaking with witnesses and firemen, reviewing 911 calls, and searching for leads. The Jan. 7 fire might take months to contain.
Jose Medina, acting special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Los Angeles office, stated during a press conference on Tuesday that all of this will require time. According to him, the case was being investigated by 75 federal and local investigators. We are aware that the community demands answers and that everyone wants them. ATF will provide you with those answers, but only after we’ve finished a comprehensive investigation. We don’t know when this will happen.
Although investigators have not yet drawn any findings, several law enforcement sources involved with the investigation have stated that the probe’s initial focus was on possible human causes. According to the sources, the potential causes include arson, an unintentional spark, fireworks, unapproved camping, or a resurgence of a fire that was put out on New Year’s Day.
In search of the tiniest hints, the probe has guided investigators into the ash-covered area where the fire was initially discovered.
To the untrained eye, wind-blown wildland fires, such as the Palisades Fire, leave movement patterns on grass, trees, plants, rocks, and other items that show how the flames spread. The detectives proceed backward to the suspected commencement place by marking those signs.
According to Ed Nordskog, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s fire investigator who isn’t working on the Palisades Fire investigation, “if you know how to read those patterns, it becomes quickly evident where the fire origin is.”
According to Nordskog, investigators attempt to focus their search within a 25 square foot area before dividing the area into a grid of zones, each measuring roughly 4 square feet. They search for small items such as pieces of molten machinery, a match head, glass, and fireworks remnants that could clarify or rule out a possible cause using magnets, metal detectors, and magnifying lenses. They might bring in a dog that has been trained to detect accelerant traces. They are also guided by nearby electrical devices, such as poles or fences, or by indications of gas-powered cars. Other investigators converse with witnesses who might have noticed something unusual during this time.
Together with local authorities, the ATF National Response Team is spearheading a joint investigation into the Palisades Fire and other fires that broke out last week throughout Los Angeles County. Fueled by strong winds, the fires tore through neighborhoods and mountainsides, destroying over 12,000 buildings, devouring over 40,000 acres, and killing at least 25 people. There are still some flames burning.
Because of the numerous possible causes that investigators must rule out in order to identify a cause, the greatest fire, the Palisades Fire, may be the most challenging to explain.
The most public conjecture has been that the Jan. 1 fire was the cause.
Residents of the nearby Palisades Highlands neighborhood, which is a part of Pacific Palisades, noticed that brush fire that had started in the vicinity of the ridgeline sometime after midnight. After firefighters extinguished it, it was declared contained before five in the morning, with no buildings damaged and no one injured. The cause was not reported by the city fire department.
It took six days for the fire to be mostly forgotten.
Darrin Hurwitz started his daily trek up a mountainside trail close to his home in the Marquez Knolls area at 8:20 a.m. on January 7. Authorities had already warned that Los Angeles was at great risk of fire due to the extremely windy conditions.
He claimed that an hour into the trip, he smelled smoke and saw a stretch of burned foliage as he passed a boulder known as Skull Rock. Hurwitz recalled the New Year’s Day fire and claimed he didn’t give it much thought, thinking either that the smell was from the fire or that he was picking up fires burning far away.
Hurwitz, a 49-year-old lawyer, claimed that he saw no smoke or anything noteworthy when he stopped a few hundred feet from the burn scar. He stated that simply believing something was strange was insufficient. His family managed to flee the neighborhood fire hours later, but their home was completely destroyed.
A group of trail runners noticed smoke and flames near Skull Rock by mid-morning and hurried away, filming and snapping photos as they made their way to safety. Around 10:30 a.m., Palisades Highlands residents said they could see the fire spreading from their houses.
Speculation that the Palisades Fire was caused by a rekindling of the previous fire has been heightened by the fact that two flames occurred in about the same location six days apart. However, there is disagreement among specialists over the viability of that hypothesis. Although the fires were only a few hours apart, it was discovered that the 2023 firestorm that destroyed the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui was caused by the rekindling of a smaller fire.
According to Nordskog, embers from a fire may lodge and stay hot for days or weeks, and tree roots may continue to burn underground. According to him, this phenomenon is more prevalent in highland woods than it is on the Pacific Palisades’ coastal brush. But, he said, it is feasible.
Former ATF fire investigator Scott Sweetow expressed skepticism that this occurred in this instance.
He claimed that rekindling was extremely unlikely due to the Pacific Palisades’ comparatively sparse vegetation and the six days that passed before the second fire started.