The deadly Palisades fire may have been caused by the reignition of a New Year’s Eve fire caused by fireworks, according to evidence from Brianna Sacks, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Imogen Piper, and Aaron C. Davis of The New Zealand Herald. Satellite imagery and radio communications suggest the new blaze started near the previous fire’s burn scar, raising the possibility that smoldering remnants reignited in windy conditions. Investigators are looking into the cause. They write:
About 30 minutes after the Palisades fire started on Tuesday, the firefighters’ radio crackled: the flames were coming from a familiar sliver of a mountain ridge.
“The foot of the fire started real close to where the last fire was on New Year’s Eve,” said a Los Angeles County firefighter, according to a Washington Post review of archived radio transmissions.
“It looks like it’s going to make a good run,” one chimed into the dispatch.
The Post’s analysis of photos, videos, satellite imagery and radio communications, plus interviews with witnesses, offers new evidence that the Palisades fire started in the area where firefighters had spent hours using helicopters to knock down a blaze six days earlier. […]
Investigators from state and federal agencies descended on this area in recent days, interviewing residents and looking for evidence – including around the burn scar of the New Year’s Eve fire – of what sparked the fire.
The Post’s analysis showed the new fire started in the vicinity of the old fire, raising the possibility the New Year’s Eve fire was reignited, which could occur in windy conditions, experts said. […]
From Colorado to California to Hawaii, flare-ups of previous fires, known as reignition, have been the cause of some of the nation’s most catastrophic and deadly wildfires. This past summer, California officials co-ordinated a social media campaign to warn residents that terrain scorched but seemingly extinguished can spawn deadly new fires for weeks after the old ones appear to have gone out because fire can smoulder almost undetected under ground or inside wood.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (LAFD) is taking the lead on the investigation, officials said. In response to questions about reignition as a possible cause, the LAFD said, “This is an ongoing, active investigation and the team will not comment on an ongoing investigation.”
From the start of the fire on Tuesday, authorities have known the smoke began in a stretch of Temescal Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains where the earlier fire, believed by residents to have been sparked by fireworks, occurred. […]
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