Weather Bee | Why have the LA fires attracted attention?
The wildfires in Los Angeles, while not the largest in California history, attract attention due to the county's high population density and financial stakes.
The county of Los Angeles in the state of California in the United States has been affected by another big wildfire this week. This has already burned through an area similar to the two biggest fires that started on January 7. While HT had explained the weather factors behind these fires on January 9, the latest fire is a good opportunity to consider why these fires have garnered attention.

According to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the three biggest wildfires that have affected Los Angeles this year are the Palisades and Eaton fires that started in early January and the Hughes fire that started this week. While each of them has burned through over 10,000 acres, they are ranked only 52nd, 72nd, and 83rd biggest wildfires to affect California since 2009, the first year for which the state’s fire department has data on wildfires.
The statistics detailed above mean that the ongoing Los Angeles fires are not the worst California has seen in terms of size. To be sure, while a large part of the former two fires are contained, none of the three fires are yet to be completely contained. This means that the area burned by them might still get bigger.
Why are these fires getting this attention if California has seen much bigger fires before? One reason is that Los Angeles is the third most densely settled county in California after San Francisco and Orange. In absolute terms, the settled area in the county is the biggest in the state. This means that a wildfire in the county has much more potential for damage to life and property than in any other county in the state.
The loss of property can also have bigger financial implications in Los Angeles than elsewhere in the country. The mean annual household income for Los Angeles in the 2019-2023 period was ranked 187th highest among over 3,000 counties in the country, according to the five-year estimates of the American Community Survey (ACS). That rank could be higher if Los Angeles was not the biggest county in the US by population. The median county in the United States had an estimated 10,200 households in the 2019-2023 ACS while Los Angeles had around 3.4 million households.
Yet another reason for the attention garnered by the county’s fires could be that wildfires are not as common there as in other parts of the state. While the state’s fire department has recorded wildfires since 2009, its first record of a wildfire in Los Angeles is only in 2018 (when the Woolsey fire engulfed Los Angeles and neighbouring Ventura). Between 2018 and 2023, the maximum number of fires the county witnessed in a year was 13 in 2020. It is only in 2024 that the number rose dramatically to 35. In 2025, the number is at 10 in less than a month. This is one reason the Palisades fire that started in early January is the fourth biggest fire to affect the county although it is not ranked as high in the state.
To be sure, the reason for the global attention to the fires is somewhat different. As HT had explained here, extreme weather has a role to play in these fires, just as it has a role in a lot of wildfires around the world in recent years. Since a lot of extreme weather today is the result of a fast-changing climate, these fires are another reminder of the kind of disasters that will become more common as the planet warms up.
