Here are the morning’s top stories on Friday, January 10, 2025…
- If you’ve been following the fires in Los Angeles, online or on TV, you’ve likely seen videos of gridlocked roads filled with abandoned cars. As the Palisades Fire closed in, residents trying to escape were forced to leave their vehicles behind and flee on foot. Bulldozers were later used to clear the roads. This chaotic scene highlights a troubling reality. Many communities, especially those with narrow, winding roads, are unprepared for large scale evacuations.
- The fires raging in Southern California have affected thousands of people who have lost their homes. But those losses also affect a wider community of people, namely a population of largely immigrant and Latino workers.
Many Communities Aren’t Ready For Wildfire Evacuations
When the Palisades Fire exploded, people rushed to their cars to evacuate, but found the roads clogged with traffic. As the flames approached, police officers told drivers to flee on foot. The abandoned cars were later cleared with a bulldozer.
The scene echoed evacuations from other recent wildfires, ones with far deadlier results. In both California’s Camp Fire in 2018 and in Lahaina, Maui in 2023, residents died in their cars or fleeing on foot when the streets were blocked with standstill traffic and they were overtaken by the blaze.
With wildfires spreading faster as the climate gets hotter, evacuation is becoming even more critical. In high winds, like those Los Angeles saw this week, firefighters have little chance of slowing or stopping the blaze. Getting people out is the only option. Still, many communities are lagging on evacuation planning, studies have found. And many face similar chokepoints, with narrow, winding roads making it difficult for residents to get safely out of neighborhoods.
Workers Also Feeling Impacts Of Fires
The fires raging in Southern California have affected thousands of people who have lost their homes. But there’s a trickle down impacting other members of the community.