A new major report is out about the deadly 2025 Southern California wildfires. It’s a report many have been waiting for since the flames died down.
Released Friday, it found numerous failures contributed to the fires, listing extreme weather, infrastructure, evacuation challenges, firefighting limitations and conditions within communities. It says a series of delayed evacuation notices in a historically Black neighborhood led to the majority of wildfire deaths.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office commissioned the report conducted by UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute after the Palisades, Eaton and other fires tore through Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
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Researchers examined the conditions and decisions before and during the fires, including emergency preparedness, evacuation warnings and orders, transportation, utilities, firefighting and law enforcement actions, weather, vegetation and the built environment.
The report identifies 175 findings and 266 recommendations.
“The fires in Southern California and in communities across the U.S. demonstrate that we are entering a new era of modern conflagration,” said Steve Kerber, vice president of UL Research Institutes.
Researchers said the Palisades and Eaton fires developed under extreme conditions, including powerful Santa Ana winds, critically dry vegetation and rapid movement from wildland areas into densely populated communities.
California and local governments had already invested heavily in wildfire preparedness, including things like vegetation management, evacuation systems, and more. But the scale and speed of the fires overwhelmed much of what was in place.
The analysis identified challenges involving community-wide wildfire mitigation, incident management, evacuation coordination, situational awareness, infrastructure resilience, fire suppression and accountability for resources.
Researchers also found wildfire exposure and structure loss can be influenced by conditions across an entire neighborhood or community. The report suggested that traditional approaches focused primarily on individual homes may not be enough to protect communities from large-scale fires.
Late early warnings
The report found that some of those who perished in the fire didn’t receive warnings until the fire was already at their doorstep.
“Some evacuation notifications, particularly in the Eaton Fire west of Lake Avenue, were issued as the fire approached and, in some cases, after it had already begun impacting the area,” the report said. “The circumstances of several fatalities suggest that some individuals may not have been aware of the fire’s proximity or their evacuation status.”
That was the case in Altadena, where the Los Angeles Times profiled several residents sharing stories about thinking they were safe until they suddenly weren’t. Seventeen people died in the same neighborhood.
How to fix it
Moving forward, the report recommends shifting more attention toward community-wide wildfire mitigation and preparing for what it calls large, wind-driven community conflagrations.
Other recommendations include improving operational intelligence and situational awareness, expanding firefighting capabilities, increasing the use of wildfire-resistant building practices, improving evacuation and communications systems, strengthening infrastructure under extreme conditions and developing standardized procedures for what happens after a fire is suppressed.
The report does not point to one agency, policy or organization as solely responsible for the outcome.
Despite that, many have put the blame on local utility companies as survivors continue to fight insurance companies during the rebuild.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has not yet commented on the report.
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