Imperfect Paradise: Why fires happen in Southern California — and how we can prevent them

California Love

LAist Studios

Music

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The same factors that make Los Angeles an appealing place to live, like large urban scale development intertwined with nature, are also the reason we need a fundamentally different approach to fire. Host Antonia Cereijido and science reporter and host of LAist podcast The Big Burn Jacob Margolis dive into what makes Southern California’s ecology unique and what that means for fire management.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	For ongoing coverage of the Southern California wildfires, download the new LASD mobile app so you can listen wherever you are.
0:07.0	You can also stream us on LAS.com or listen live on LASD 89.3. LAS will be there with you every step of the way.
0:15.5	Hey, it's just me, Paula Poundstone, and I'm coming to Glendale for a special live taping co-presented by L.Aist and
0:21.9	Martin Media. It's February 8th at the Alex Theater. Tickets at LASD.com slash events. See you there.
0:30.8	Hey, this is Imperfect Paradise. I'm Antonio Sedehita. It's been three weeks since Los Angeles first experienced a windstorm that caused two of the most destructive and deadly fires in Southern California history.
0:49.2	As of this recording, on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 21st, the Palisades Fire has caused 10 deaths, the destruction
0:57.3	of an estimated 5,000 structures, and is 52% contained.
1:02.9	The Eton Fire on the East Side has caused the death of 17 civilians, destroyed a little
1:08.2	under 10,000 structures, and is at 81% containment.
1:12.4	And many of us are asking, why and how did this happen?
1:16.9	We all know that Southern California is a fire-prone area.
1:21.1	But how did it get so bad?
1:23.3	And what can we do to prevent it from happening in the future?
1:31.0	There and what can we do to prevent it from happening in the future? There are investigations underway into the causes of the Palisades and Eden fires.
1:36.6	Different media outlets have reported that investigators are looking into whether the
1:40.6	Palisades fire is a rekindling of an earlier fire caused by fireworks from
1:45.4	New Year's Eve, and whether an electrical transmission line in the Eden Canyon area could be
1:51.1	the root cause of the Eaton fire. We don't have concrete answers yet, so instead we're taking
1:57.6	a step back. In 2022, LA has put out The Big Burn, a show about why wildfires have gotten so bad in California
2:08.2	and what we can do about it. I encourage you to check out the whole show, but there's one
2:13.9	episode that feels especially urgent right now, the Southern California problem.
2:20.2	In it, science reporter and host Jacob Margolis explores how Southern California's urban sprawl and ecology creates unique conditions for fire.
	...

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