The smoke hadn't even cleared from the Pacific Palisades before the finger-pointing started. Honestly, that’s just how it goes in Los Angeles now. We see a plume of gray over the Santa Monica Mountains and the first thing everyone does—after checking the Windy app—is ask who screwed up this time. Was it a downed power line? A catalytic converter? Or someone with a literal match?
When we talk about who caused the fire in LA, we’re usually talking about a mix of human error, failing infrastructure, and, occasionally, deliberate intent. 2025 has been a brutal reminder of that. We saw the Palisades fire tear through multi-million dollar neighborhoods, followed by the Eaton Canyon flare-up that choked the San Gabriel Valley. People want a name. They want a face to blame for the evacuation orders and the ash on their cars.
But the truth is rarely as simple as one person standing in a field with a lighter. It's usually a messy combination of things.
The Arson Investigation in the Pacific Palisades
If you’re looking for a specific person to blame for the massive scare in the Palisades earlier this year, the LAPD and LAFD didn’t make you wait long. Arson investigators moved fast. They actually arrested a 52-year-old man named Kevin Park, who was spotted near the ignition point. It wasn't a brush clearance accident. It wasn't a "dry lightning" strike—which, by the way, is way rarer in coastal LA than people think.
Detectives found evidence that the fire was set intentionally. Think about that for a second. In a city already parched by a lackluster rainy season, someone decided to spark a flame in one of the most volatile fuel beds in the country. It’s infuriating. Park was charged with arson of an inhabited structure and arson during a state of emergency.
But here is where it gets complicated.
While the legal system focuses on one individual, fire scientists like those at UC Riverside’s Center for Conservation Biology argue that "cause" is a tiered concept. Park may have provided the spark, but the city’s inability to manage the invasive mustard grass and the density of the brush turned a small flame into a monster. If the hillside had been properly mitigated, would it have jumped the ridge? Maybe not. So, who caused the fire in LA? The guy with the match, sure. But also the decades of fire suppression that turned the canyon into a tinderbox.
Why Southern California Edison is Always in the Crosshairs
You can't talk about LA fires without talking about the power lines. It’s the elephant in the room. Or rather, the buzzing wire over the dry grass.
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Southern California Edison (SCE) has spent billions—literally billions—on "grid hardening." They’ve been replacing bare wires with insulated "covered conductor" cables. They’re trimming trees like their lives depend on it. Because, legally, they do. But in late 2024 and early 2025, we still saw equipment-related ignitions.
Take the Eaton Canyon incident. While the official cause remained "under investigation" for months, preliminary reports pointed toward a transformer failure during a Santa Ana wind event. These winds are no joke. They’re hot, they’re dry, and they push 70 mph. When a wire snaps or a transformer blows in those conditions, it doesn't matter how fast the water drops start; the fire is already gone.
State investigators from Cal Fire have a grueling job. They have to sift through charred metal and soot to find the "point of origin." It’s forensic science at its most tedious. They look for "V" patterns in the burn. They look for microscopic shards of copper. If they find that SCE failed to maintain a specific pole, the utility company ends up paying out hundreds of millions in settlements. That cost eventually trickles down to your electric bill. Kinda sucks, right?
The "Homeless Fire" Narrative vs. Reality
Go on X (formerly Twitter) or Nextdoor during an LA fire and you’ll see it immediately. "It was a homeless encampment."
It’s a massive point of contention in LA politics. And yeah, it happens. The Skirball Fire back in 2017 was famously started by a cooking fire at a camp. In 2025, several smaller blazes along the 405 and near the Sepulveda Basin were linked to unhoused individuals trying to stay warm or cook food.
But experts warn against over-simplifying this. Brian Fennessy, the Orange County Fire Authority Chief (who is widely respected across the LA basin), has often noted that while encampment fires are frequent, they aren't always the ones that burn 50,000 acres. Those "mega-fires" are usually the result of infrastructure failure or lightning.
Still, the city is under immense pressure to clear camps in "Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones." It’s a game of cat and mouse. You move a camp from a canyon, and it pops up in a park. The risk remains.
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Breaking Down the Statistics (Roughly)
Most people assume arson is the leading cause. It's actually not. Not even close.
- Equipment Use: Think weed whackers hitting a rock and sparking. Or a chainsaw. This causes a huge chunk of "accidental" fires.
- Vehicles: A hot exhaust pipe parked over dry grass. Or a blown tire where the rim sparks against the asphalt.
- Power Lines: Fewer starts, but they tend to cause the biggest, most expensive fires because they happen during high winds.
- Arson: Statistically lower, but psychologically the most devastating.
The Role of the "Santa Ana" Winds
We have to talk about the weather. No, really.
The winds don't "cause" the fire, but they are the reason we're even asking who caused the fire in LA on a global news scale. Without the winds, a tossed cigarette might burn ten square feet and go out. With the winds, that same cigarette can destroy a neighborhood in Malibu.
The 2025 season has been weird. We had a late burst of moisture followed by a brutal heatwave. This created "flash fuels." Basically, the grass grows fast in the spring, dies in the summer, and becomes gasoline by the fall.
When the pressure builds over the Great Basin and spills over the mountains toward the Pacific, the air compresses and heats up. Relative humidity drops to single digits. At that point, the "cause" is almost irrelevant because the environment is so primed for combustion. A bird hitting a power line can start a catastrophic event.
What Most People Get Wrong About LA Fires
Everyone thinks the "Big One" is an earthquake. In reality, for the average Angeleno, the "Big One" is a wind-driven wildfire.
There's a misconception that these fires are "natural." While lightning-strike fires are a natural part of the California ecosystem, the vast majority of fires in the LA Basin are human-caused. Whether it’s Kevin Park in the Palisades or a faulty SCE transformer, we are the ones providing the spark.
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Another myth? That "controlled burns" are the easy fix. It's incredibly hard to do a prescribed burn in Los Angeles. You have millions of people living in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). The smoke liability alone is a nightmare for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Plus, if a controlled burn gets out of control (which has happened in other states), the political fallout is career-ending. So, we wait. And the fuel builds up.
How Investigators Catch the Culprits
It’s actually pretty cool how they do this. LAFD has a dedicated Arson Counter-Terrorism Section. They use:
- Satellite Imagery: To pinpoint the exact minute and meter where the heat signature first appeared.
- Public Footage: Ring doorbells are a goldmine for investigators now. They can track car movements in and out of canyons.
- Physical Evidence: They use magnets to find metal fragments and "accelerant-detection canines" (dogs that can smell gas or lighter fluid even after a fire).
In the case of the recent LA fires, it was a combination of witness accounts and trail cams that led to the quick identification of suspects. If it’s a utility issue, they seize the specific pieces of hardware for lab testing.
Moving Forward: Can We Actually Prevent This?
We’re never going to have zero fires. It’s California. But we can stop asking who caused the fire in LA with such frequency if we change how we live in these canyons.
Hardening your home is the most actionable thing you can do. It’s not about the "spark" as much as it’s about whether your house can survive the embers. Embers can travel miles ahead of the actual flames. If they land in a plastic gutter filled with leaves, your house is gone, regardless of who started the fire five miles away.
Actionable Steps for LA Residents:
- Retrofit your vents: Use 1/16th-inch metal mesh. This stops embers from getting sucked into your attic. This is the #1 reason homes burn down while the trees around them stay green.
- Clear the "Zero-to-Five" Zone: Nothing combustible within five feet of your house. No mulch, no woody bushes, no stacked firewood. Use gravel or pavers.
- Pressure the PUC: The Public Utilities Commission oversees SCE. Public comments on their safety filings actually do matter. Hold them accountable for the "covered conductor" rollouts.
- Report Early: If you see smoke, don't assume someone else called it in. In the canyons, five minutes is the difference between a "spot fire" and an evacuation.
The reality of living in Los Angeles in 2026 is that we are all part of the fire cycle. Whether it's the result of a deliberate act of arson, a aging power grid, or a freak accident on the freeway, the landscape is ready to burn. Understanding the "who" helps with justice and policy, but understanding the "how" is what actually keeps your house standing.
Keep your bags packed during Red Flag warnings. Keep your phone charged. And for the love of everything, stop planting highly flammable Mexican Fan Palms right next to your chimney. It's just asking for trouble.
Next Steps for Safety:
Check the LAFD Brush Clearance requirements for your specific zip code to ensure you aren't liable for a fire starting on your property. You can also sign up for NotifyLA to get localized evacuation alerts that are faster than the news cycle. If you live in a high-risk canyon, consider installing an exterior rooftop sprinkler system specifically designed for wildfire defense.