The 24 Hours When L.A. Went Up in Flames

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news development

The New York Times

Fires

By The New York Times

Jonathan Wolfe, Emily Baumgaertner, Mike Baker, Marco Hernandez, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Blacki Migliozzi, Rachel Nostrant, Danny Hakim, Leanne Abraham, Joey K. Lee, Devon Lum, Arijeta Lajka, Ashley Wu and Nick Underwood

Additional contributions by

Katie Benner, David W. Chen, Ivan Penn, Shawn Hubler, Soumya Karlamangla, Thomas Fuller, Alexandra Berzon, Jamie Leventhal and Philip Cheung contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes, Alain Delaquérière and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.


I worked on the team that helped to reconstruct the first 24 hours of the wildfires that devastated parts of LA in January of 2025. Specifically I focused on building the wind maps that showed the wind flow over the Palisades and Eaton fires.

Palisades fire wind map Palisades fire wind map animated Eaton fire wind map Eaton fire wind map animated

During those first 24 hours of the fires, wind speeds over the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains were over 50 m.p.h. with wind gusts measuring up to 100 m.p.h.


The 24 Hours When L.A. Went Up in Flames - The New York Times