0 to 10,000 acres in just hours: Why did the Hughes Fire explode in size so fast?
A fast-spreading wildfire that erupted this week about 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles roared from nothing to nearly 10,000 acres − in a matter of hours.
The Hughes Fire that started Wednesday and continued to burn Thursday is the latest in a series of disastrous blazes that have broken out in southern California since Jan. 7. Most have spread incredibly fast, a hallmark of many of the state's most catastrophic fires.
These rapid-pace fires have exploded against a backdrop of extreme drought, lack of rain and howling Santa Ana winds, a dangerous combination that's proved deadly as the wildfires continue to rage.
Why did the Hughes Fire explode so fast?
One of the reasons for the fire's rapid spread is that Southern California has gone without significant rain for nine months, contributing to hazardous conditions, experts said.
"This vegetation is extremely dry,” LA County Fire public information officer Fred Fielding told NBC Los Angeles on Wednesday. “We've had two years of above average rainfall (2023 and 2024)… so you've got a lot of these light grasses where these fires can start, and if it gets into that old growth vegetation there's a lot of energy there. Combine that with the winds, and you've got a recipe for a very high rate of spread."
Extremely low humidity also helps dry out vegetation, making it a better fuel for fires.
Fast-moving fires are 'particularly destructive'
California’s wildfires have become increasingly destructive in recent years. "Research my colleagues and I have conducted shows U.S. wildfires are up to four times larger and three times more frequent than they were in the 1980s and ’90s," said Virginia Iglesias of the University of Colorado, writing in the Conversation. "Fast-moving fires have been particularly destructive, accounting for 78% of structures destroyed and 61% of suppression costs between 2001 and 2020."
According to Iglesias, human development in fire-prone regions, especially in the wildland-urban interface, where neighborhoods mingle with forest and grasslands, has introduced new, highly flammable fuels.
"Buildings, vehicles and infrastructure often ignite easily and burn hotter and faster than natural vegetation," she said. "These changes have significantly altered fuel patterns, creating conditions conducive to more severe and harder-to-control wildfires."
She added that while climate change sets the stage for larger and more intense fires, "humans are actively fanning the flames."
Powerful Santa Ana winds fueling fires
One of the nation's most notorious wind events helped fuel the destructive wildfires.
The Santa Ana winds, which occur most often in the fall and winter, push dry air from over the inland deserts of California and the Southwest toward the coast, the National Weather Service said. As high-pressure systems move east to west over the Santa Ana Mountain range, wind is forced down where it’s compressed and warms up.
Janice Coen, a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said these winds also dry out vegetation on the mountain ridges as they pass and can carry embers over long distances – allowing fires to spread rapidly.
'A stark reminder' of 'wildfire behavior'
The fast-growing Hughes Fire is “a stark reminder of the dynamic nature of wildfire behavior,” said Firas Saleh, director of North American wildfires for Moody’s, a global research and analysis firm.
The wind conditions, (dry) plants and low humidity all contributed to its rapid expansion, Saleh said in a statement Thursday morning.
In a new estimate released Thursday, Moody's put the losses in the Los Angeles wildfires at $20 billion to $30 billion.
Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Paste BN; Reuters