California is home to occasional earthquakes, various landslides, longstanding droughts, and most of all, sweeping and devastating wildfires. This past January, the Palisades and Altadena fires, alongside many other smaller flare ups, brought complete destruction and turmoil to L.A. county. Up to 150,000 residents have been displaced, and those who aren’t fortunate enough to have family or friends nearby are forced to live in hotels and rentals. In 2023, 7,386 wildfires were reported across the state, with over 300,000 acres of land burned. It’s evident that California is no stranger to natural disasters, as the dire effects of climate change continue to worsen. But climate change is not the only actor in this story. While it plays a big part in exacerbating dangerous conditions and effects of natural disasters, the idea that these disasters are simply mother nature taking its course is ignorant to other crucial components. The L.A. wildfires were more than natural. The fires were caused fundamentally by a cycle of speculative property development, intensified by a lack of government regulation, where real estate developers seek out profitable land that people will reside on, regardless of its ability to house them safely.
Known for its breathtaking views of the coast and grand secluded residences, the Palisades is an affluent neighborhood in L.A. with “very high fire hazard severity,” which experts say is due to housing expansion into known fire zones. In the recent sweep of wildfires that burned for 24 days, 6,837 structures were destroyed, 12 people were killed, and 23,707 acres were burned. While an investigation into the specific root cause is still underway, the Palisades naturally contains flammable vegetation that, coupled with the increased presence of residential life, allowed for the fires to persist for weeks.
People often resort to blaming climate change as the catalyst for many natural disasters. And it’s not without reason. California is prone to droughts, and is therefore more dry than other states, which has been intensified by climate change. This combination makes California a well-known wildfire hotspot. Despite the obvious presence of wildfire danger, we continue to build property in areas that are not suitable for human life. This, of course, increases and prolongs human presence within areas we should not be in. So, when “natural” disasters such as earthquakes and wildfires occur, they cause immense damage to our infrastructure and communities. While there has been a slowdown of property development within the Palisades in recent years, plans to rebuild homes are well underway.
Despite outcries of a mismanaged LAFD, finger-pointing at L.A. mayor Karen Bass, and ultimately misguided calls for action against climate change, many have failed to ask the real question: why do we continue to build homes and create residential living spaces in areas that are not able to safely house us? We know houses are extremely flammable, so why do we continue to build them in fire-prone areas? The answer is simple: for profit. Known as speculative property development, this easy money-grab is the process of real estate developers building properties without questioning if the place in which they’re building has the capacity for human life, all for the pursuit of profit.
In 2018, another well-known neighborhood adjacent to the Palisades, Malibu, also experienced devastating fires. In an interview with urban theorist Mike Davis, he explained that the continuous rebuilding of affluent communities in fire-prone areas is irrational and dangerous, highlighting the “crazy political-economic system that so comprehensively ignores nature, ignores climate change, and continues to build houses and entire towns that will inevitably burn.” The Palisades, as previously mentioned, is known to be one of the most luxurious parts of the greater L.A. area. Because of this, we give it value that translates into extreme living prices that most dream of being able to afford. And as long as we continue to give it this value, there will be property built and bought, and it will be bought by the rich, and no matter how many times the properties are torn down, they will continue to be built again.
Additionally, the government has been ineffective in addressing speculative property development. About 45 percent of homes built in California between 1990 and 2020 were built in fire-prone areas, despite these areas only making up 7% of the state. To address this, a bill was introduced in 2020 that required local governments to impose certain codes and design standards on development in designated high fire risk areas. It was vetoed by Newsom when it reached his desk. Then, in 2022, another bill was written that would have implemented extreme restrictions on construction in fire-prone areas. It never reached a vote as it faced great opposition from California’s building industry. In 2025, the average price for construction per square foot in the Palisades is $500, but can soar beyond $1,000 when including premium finishes and unique architectural features, effectively creating a profitable property market that developers cannot resist. And construction costs are expected to rise in response to the fires, which will increase the already extravagant prices of homes. The high value of the Palisades itself will always remain, and attempts to change our development patterns continue to fall short, allowing real estate developers to further profit from destruction and tragedy.
Our ignorance of human environmental impact has led to problems of climate change that we can no longer ignore. Droughts, wildfires, landslides, and more have stressed our communities enough, but to only call for action against climate change disregards other crucial factors. In the case of wildfires, speculative property development and its lack of government regulation leads to residential spaces being built on land not suitable for humans, as profit is more valuable than human life.
In short, the presence of human activity within areas that are not supposed to be inhabited, when caught up in the destruction of wildfires, creates an illusion that wildfires are increasing in quantity due to climate change. Calls for action against climate change are not misdirected. But they should be distributed equally to the elites who hinder attempts at institutional change, and to the elites who take advantage of minimal government oversight and create conditions for such atrocities to continue. This is not the last chain of fires the Palisades or the wider L.A. area will experience, so we must stop and ask ourselves, is rebuilding property in fire-prone areas truly the best response to such catastrophes? How much of a role do we play in these “natural” disasters?
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