LOS ANGELES: Two devastating wildfires in Los Angeles were declared fully contained by firefighters on Friday (Jan 31) after burning for more than three weeks, killing about 30 people and displacing thousands more.
The Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California’s Los Angeles County were the most destructive in the history of the second-largest US city, burning more than 150 sq km and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, updated the figures on its website on Friday to show 100 per cent containment of both fires, meaning their perimeters were completely under control.
Evacuation orders were lifted earlier, with the fires not posing a serious threat for days.
Both blazes started on Jan 7 and their exact cause remains under investigation.
But human-driven climate change set the stage for the infernos by reducing rainfall, parching vegetation, and extending the dangerous overlap between flammable drought conditions and powerful Santa Ana winds, according to an analysis published this week.
The study, conducted by dozens of researchers, concluded that the conditions fueling the blazes were approximately 35 per cent more likely due to global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
