This is John Batchel, conversation with my colleague Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch.

The fire of January 2025 that swept through the Pacific Palisades started purposefully by a man

alleged arsonist, but Jeff explains, the Santa Ana winds, in order to leave the area and not worry about the smoldering underbrush,

all combined for a catastrophe that is still incomplete.

The rebuild is hardly started, but the mystery of who was in charge and why and who's responsible, that remains.

Here's Jeff to explain those San Ana winds.

Much more of this later today.

Well, these winds were high winds that were coming in off the ocean, the San Ana winds,

which are not unusual.

And what that caused is it caused, you know, it brought more air to the area. It moved the embers and whatever sparks were

around. It gave the fire an opportunity to reignite. And so you had this area that had burned up

into the, you know, had originated in the state park adjacent

to Pacific Palisades. L.A. fire and, and others were told by the state you can't bulldoze

that area to clear it out, to put out whatever remaining fires in the area because it endangers

a plant there.

And so what happened is the fire reignited with the winds.

Boom, we were off to the races.

And I think as we were reporting on it within an hour of it happening, we knew this was going to be a big fire.