Qualla: Palisades Fire

Palisades Fire: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pacamah, CC BY 4.0. The area had not seen measurable rainfall in eight months. Santa Ana winds were arriving at extraordinary velocity. When a fire was first reported near Pacific Palisades at around 10:30 a.m. on January 7, 2025, a CAL FIRE battalion chief told the Los Angeles Times that conditions represented 'the perfect recipe for a large wildfire.' Within hours, the Palisades Fire had spread beyond what any prediction model had prepared residents to expect.

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Image: Pacamah | CC BY 4.0

Palisades Fire: What the Fire Consumed

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Visitor7, CC BY-SA 3.0. The final count was 6,837 structures destroyed and 12 people killed. The Palisades branch of the Los Angeles Public Library burned. Palisades Elementary and Marquez Elementary Schools were destroyed. Palisades Charter High School was badly damaged, with roughly 40 percent of the ...

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Image: Visitor7 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Palisades Fire: Water and Wind

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Fitzgerald, OpenStreetMap; The Los Angeles Times' Mapping L.A. project created the individual neighborhood boundaries, but not the groupings seen here, CC BY-SA 2.0. The fire's speed exposed infrastructure limits that had not been fully tested before. Fire hydrants in the more elevated parts of Pacific Palisades began running dry — ultimately, 20 percent of hydrants in those higher elevations lost pressure during the sudden demands of firefig...

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Image: Peter Fitzgerald, OpenStreetMap; The Los Angeles Times' Mapping L.A. project created the individual neighborhood boundaries, but not the groupings seen here | CC BY-SA 2.0

Palisades Fire: The Getty Villa and What Survived

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0. Vegetation at the Getty Villa caught fire, but the buildings and the 44,000-piece antiquities collection inside were unharmed. The Villa closed for remediation — deep cleaning, system flushes, air and water filter replacements, the removal of more than 1,300 fire-damaged trees — ...

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Image: Rennett Stowe from USA | CC BY 2.0

Palisades Fire: Arson and Investigation

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tumford14, CC0. In October 2025, federal authorities arrested a man in Florida and charged him with three felony counts of arson. Investigators alleged that he had set an earlier fire on January 1 using a combustible material that was not fully extinguished and later reignited to become the Pali...

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Image: Tumford14 | CC0