As officers probe the reason for the Palisades Fireplace in Southern California, investigators have centered their consideration on a well-liked Los Angeles-area climbing path the place one other hearth had burned six days earlier.
A CBS Information evaluation of satellite tv for pc imagery and photographs shared by native residents signifies the Palisades Fireplace seemingly began near the place that different blaze, the Lachman Fireplace, broke out on Jan. 1.
Whereas the Lachman Fireplace was restricted to eight acres and didn’t destroy buildings, the Palisades Fireplace, which broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, exploded as Santa Ana winds picked up, burning greater than 23,000 acres and killing not less than eight individuals, in response to Cal Fireplace. One week in, the fireplace was nonetheless solely 17% contained.
Officers haven’t decided a trigger for the Palisades Fireplace. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives mentioned Monday that it has deployed 15 investigators to work with native, state and federal businesses to find out the trigger and origin level.
Planet Labs satellite tv for pc imagery from Jan. 5 reveals the primary traces of charred land seemingly from the Lachman Fireplace.
Further Sentinel-2 satellite tv for pc imagery captured on Jan. 7 reveals smoke once more drifting from the identical space across the Temescal Ridge Path.
Pacific Palisades residents informed CBS Information they noticed the fireplace escape the morning of Jan. 7 near the Cranium Rock Trailhead alongside the Temescal Ridge Path in Topanga State Park. Jerry Del Colliano, whose residence was three blocks from the place the Palisades Fireplace seemingly began, captured a photograph of the flames rising from the path.
Jerry Del Colliano
David Hansen evacuated his aged mom from her residence by the Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7. Hansen mentioned his mom’s neighbors informed him the Palisades Fireplace sparked close to the place the Lachman Fireplace had been contained. At about 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, he snapped photographs from the 1200 block of Piedra Morada Drive of the Palisades Fireplace. Piedra Morada Drive is situated roughly seven blocks from the place the Lachman Fireplace broke out.
“A thousand percent, it was the same spot,” Hansen mentioned.
David Hansen
David Hansen
Zane Mitchell, who hiked the Temescal Ridge Path the morning of Jan. 1, informed CBS Information that elements of the bottom by the Lachman Fireplace’s burn scar have been “still smoldering” and a crew of firefighters “were still trying to put out hotspots and clean up.”
Mitchell shared photographs with CBS Information he took on his hike displaying smoke nonetheless rising from the bottom, hours after the L.A. Fireplace Division reported the fireplace contained by 4:46 a.m.
Zane Mitchell
Zane Mitchell
The Los Angeles Instances reported Southern California has a historic precedent for fires reigniting, together with the Oakland Hills hearth of 1991, which destroyed greater than 2,500 buildings.
Different latest fires, together with the August 2023 fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and a December 2021 hearth in Boulder County, Colorado, additionally reignited from lingering hotspots.
Describing the flames overtaking his neighborhood as he evacuated with aged residents in his automobile, Del Colliano mentioned: “It was like a scene from ‘The Terminator.’”
