During the beginning of January, massive wildfires made their way across the state of Los Angeles, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. They went on for four weeks before they were fully contained, and the damage was immeasurable.
At first, it was a small fire which was common for California and didn’t pose any reason to be a cause for concern until it continued to grow and grow until it became near unstoppable.
“My initial reaction was ‘It’s fire season. It happens every year [and] they go away in a few days.’ Then as they [get] worse it [started] to worry me,” senior Gianna Warren said. “[I] started wondering why they aren’t stopping them faster.”
“As soon as I got home, we were able to get out. An hour later, we managed to go back, and the house was fully engulfed,” veteran Los Angeles Fire Department member Capt. Jerry Puga said. “We lost the house, the property, the materials — but the family is safe, and that’s the most important thing.”
No one truly knows how the fires began, but theories have been brought up about what could have caused such a devastating fire to ignite. Some believe it was the winds that had allowed the originally small fire to grow to enormous size, others think global warming played a part in all of this.
“I believe it was the Santa Ana winds. [T]hey blow through every year and with the dry texture of the plants it catches so fast,” Warren said. “I heard people might’ve started it [and] while that might be true, the Santa Ana winds for sure was the reason it kept spreading.”
Regardless of what started these fires, they’ve destroyed over 57,000 acres of land and placed Los Angeles in heavy debt. It will take approximately a year before the property damage is paid off.
“As the ashes settle, the region faces an invisible threat beneath the charred remains,” writer for the Los Angeles Times Augusto Gonzalez-Bonorio said. “Compromised soil structures, contaminated watersheds and ecosystems stripped of their natural defenses — wounds that will bleed for years to come.”
Thousands of people have lost their homes and 29 people were reported dead. The loss in houses and apartments has only skyrocketed the cost in damages even further than they already were.
“The reduction in the supply of housing is going to raise prices,” senior research fellow and director emeritus of the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies at the University of Southern California Adam Rose said. “The only thing that’s going to offset that is if people move elsewhere.”=
Los Angeles and its people are in desperate need of aid. The wildfires that surged through it have caused more destruction than any natural disaster the state has ever seen. They will need all the help they can get if they want a chance at restoring the community they once were.
“When I saw that other cities, states and countries were coming to help fight the fires, I cried,” civilian Justine E. Larsen said. “While we may have differences in language, religion or political beliefs, we are all human. I’m so grateful that many took this as an opportunity to put love and kindness first.”
Fire is a dangerous force of nature. It is destructive and merciless when set loose. When fire grows too big, its disastrous nature is fully shown. Los Angeles got a glimpse of what fire can be and now they must reconstruct what the fire took.
“This [has given] me more motivation to train harder than ever to help people and save the poor people that lost their [lives] and homes,” Warren said. “I believe I can make a change. My drive to become a firefighter is to help people that are not capable [of] saving themselves or their loved ones.”
