In 2019, a California state climate task force issued a dire warning: unchecked development in the state’s wildfire-prone zones was exacerbating the frequency and severity of fires, putting millions of lives at risk. Yet, just two years later, an investigation by the Lever revealed the power dynamics behind the inaction. Housing developers, backed by a year-long lobbying campaign, successfully dismantled a proposed bill designed to limit construction in high-risk areas. This struggle is emblematic of a larger trend in California’s fire-stricken regions. Time and again, efforts to curtail development in wildfire danger zones have been thwarted by the real estate and construction industries. Safety regulations for homes in these areas, too, have often been rolled back under industry pressure, even as fires grow more frequent and devastating. According to Alexandra Syphard, a researcher at the Conservation Biology Institute, this is largely because decision making is concentrated at the local level. “There's a lot of money in it,” she tells indianexpress.com, “and the people making the decisions aren’t always the ones facing the consequences.” Nowhere is this tension more visible than in Los Angeles County, home to the highest number of residences situated in high-risk wildfire zones. The opulent neighbourhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, built into scenic yet perilous canyons and foothills, stand as stark examples. Long labelled as fire-prone, these areas have now paid the price for decades of neglect: scores of homes reduced to ashes, their ruins a grim testament to the human and environmental cost of unchecked urban expansion. Vegetation, winds, climate change Several factors put California at risk of wildfires. One of the most significant is its vegetation. Recent years have seen increased rainfall in the winter and spring, spurring rapid plant growth. But as the seasons turn dry, that lush greenery becomes fuel. Unlike the towering trees that burn in forest fires, California's wildfires are often driven by smaller, highly combustible materials like leaves and twigs, which dry out quickly and ignite easily. In regions like Los Angeles, where sprawling urban development meets untamed vegetation, fire risk is amplified. These areas are particularly vulnerable because fires that ignite in dry bush or forests can quickly spread into densely populated neighbourhoods. Researchers call this the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Compounding the problem is that houses in most areas, even affluent ones, were built a very long time ago, says Syphard. “People didn’t know how dangerous it was to build in areas like the Pacific Palisades until after they had already started doing so.” Wind is another major player. The infamous Santa Ana winds fan the flames and push fires rapidly across the landscape. Embers, carried on these winds, can travel miles, lodging in crevices of roofs, piling up between deck boards or slipping through vents to ignite homes from within. Climate change too is significantly contributing to the severity and frequency of wildfires in California. Over the past few decades, rising global temperatures have altered the state’s ecological equilibrium, transforming it into a tinderbox. Heatwaves bake the land with increasing frequency, while snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada, vital reservoirs of moisture, shrink to historic lows. The result is an extended dry season that leaves forests brittle and primed for ignition. The state’s cherished oak and pine forests now fight a losing battle, as invasive grasses, better adapted to arid conditions, replace them and ignite more readily. Exacerbating matters, the frequency of erratic winds, supercharged by warming oceans, spreads these infernos farther and faster. The result is a grim feedback loop: the fires themselves release massive amounts of carbon dioxide, amplifying the very crisis that spawned them. While lightning strikes can spark wildfires, the majority of fires in California are caused by humans — whether through discarded cigarettes, campfires, or downed power lines. “Where there are humans, there’s plentiful sources of ignition,” explains Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University. “And where those sources of ignition are near vegetation that can burn, that elevates the risk.” Urban development in fire-prone areas further exacerbates the problem. In neighbourhoods like Pacific Palisades and Malibu, homes built close to dry vegetation create a domino effect: once one house ignites, the flames spread from structure to structure. The wildfire capital of North America Malibu's rugged coastline, where the Santa Monica Mountains meet the sea, is a place of breathtaking beauty but also has a history of devastating fires. Its chaparral-covered slopes burn, on average, every two-and-a-half years, often turning into ferocious firestorms that consume homes and scar the land, making it ‘the wildfire capital of North America’. And yet, Malibu’s allure has only intensified over the decades, fuelled by speculative development, federal disaster relief, and the unshakable desire for an ocean view. Between 1990 and 2020, the number of homes in California’s fire-prone areas grew by 40 per cent, far outpacing the 23 per cent growth in less flammable regions like urban downtowns. Malibu epitomises this trend. The seeds of its development were sown in the 1920s, when developers began carving roads into the rugged canyons south of Rancho Malibu, spurred on by Los Angeles’s desire for expansion. A promotional booklet from the era declared the Santa Monicas ripe for “the march of adventuring Caucasians,” framing the occupation of the mountains as a kind of manifest destiny. The opening of the Pacific Coast Highway in 1928 offered Angelenos their first glimpse of Malibu’s stunning coastline and introduced automobiles, a potent source of ignition, to the fire-prone landscape. That same year, legal battles cleared the way for further subdivision of the land. In 1930, just months after landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. advocated for public ownership of Malibu’s scenic coastline to prevent development, a massive wildfire tore through the region. It destroyed hundreds of homes, yet calls to preserve the land as a public park went unheeded. What followed was a cycle of destruction and reconstruction that has defined Malibu’s development ever since. Fires in 1935, 1936, and 1938 destroyed hundreds of houses, but instead of halting development, each disaster spurred new waves of rebuilding. Federal disaster relief policies, introduced in the 1950s, further encouraged this pattern. By declaring Malibu a disaster area, the government offered tax breaks and low-interest loans to fire victims, enabling wealthier residents to rebuild on a larger and more exclusive scale. Over time, this resocialisation of the coast displaced modest homeowners and renters, transforming Malibu into an enclave for the rich. Mike Davis, in his seminal work Ecology of Fear (1997), called attention to this paradox: Malibu’s fires became the catalyst for its upward social succession. As land-use regulations and fire codes were relaxed to accommodate victims of the blazes, developers and wealthy homeowners were emboldened to push deeper into the Santa Monica Mountains. Each firestorm was followed by bigger, grander homes, often subsidised by artificially low fire insurance rates and public resources. Yet the natural rhythms of Malibu’s fire ecology remain unrelenting. The chaparral that blankets the mountains is adapted to burn, and periodic firestorms are inevitable. Some homeowners have been burned out multiple times in their lifetimes, with certain areas incinerated as many as eight times since 1930. Despite these repeated calamities, the resources allocated to protect Malibu like firefighters, insurance payouts and disaster relief far exceed those dedicated to fire safety in less affluent areas. For instance, the massive 1993 Malibu fire saw the largest deployment of firefighters in US history. Meanwhile, fire safety in poorer areas like downtown Los Angeles often lags behind, leading to preventable tragedies in overcrowded tenements. Urban planners Given the risk of wildfires in areas like Malibu, many question the logic of building homes there. The reason is multifaceted. Housing codes, local interest groups and insurance policies make up the complicated answer. But for Char Miller, a professor at Pomona College, there is also a simpler explanation. “The high-severity fire zones line up with some of the most spectacular overlooks that allow residents to gaze out on the Pacific Ocean in the Palisades; or, in Altadena and Pasadena, to see the sweeping valleys below and the San Gabriel Mountains above,” he tells indianexpress.com. “In short, the aesthetics are a draw to those who have the money to purchase property in these beautiful landscapes.” For decades, developers have justified this encroachment by invoking California’s chronic housing shortage, which has left renters facing some of the highest costs in the country. But, as Miller points out, the issue isn’t just about housing, it’s about profits. Developers and real estate interests often prioritise lucrative suburban sprawl over safer, more sustainable housing solutions, despite the clear risks. In Malibu, larger parcels of land, sometimes encompassing private beaches or sprawling hillsides, can command tens of millions of dollars, with estates often exceeding USD 20 million. In the Sierra Nevada, where forested acreage offers a quieter, more reclusive charm, vast tracts of land can range from USD 5 million to USD 15 million. These prices persist even as fire seasons encroach with biblical regularity, threatening to erase the very idylls they advertise. City councils and zoning commissions continue to greenlight developments in high-severity fire zones, often under pressure from developers promising to alleviate the housing crisis. But once these homes inevitably burn, accountability is scarce. “There is no urban planning,” explains Miller. “When demand for housing is high, there will always be a developer willing to meet the demand.” Additionally, a significant portion of the influx of individuals into these areas is supported by state and federal-funded roadways that align with newly developed subdivisions, and when a fire poses a threat, those roads become congested with evacuees. “What we witness at those moments is the collision of human geography with the natural systems that climate change has disrupted,” Miller says. “More intense droughts; more explosive Santa Ana winds; more dangerous conflagrations.” What’s more, rebuilding in fire-prone areas remains the historic norm. A federal study of 28 catastrophic wildfires between 1970 and 2009 found that nearly 60 per cent of destroyed homes were rebuilt within six years. Yet these replacements often show little to no improvement in fire resistance, perpetuating a dangerous cycle. Arguably what’s worse is how these fire events disproportionately affect the low income and the marginalised. People who build in high risk areas accept that there is a degree of risk which they are willing to take on, says Syphard. Developers lure them into a sense of security by promising ‘fire-resistant’ homes but better building practices mitigate not eliminate the risks. According to Syphard, while people living in affluent areas are more likely to incorporate fire prevention measures (distance from shrubbery, use of concrete etc.) they can also afford to take the risk of losing their homes. For one, most properties in these areas are worth considerably less than the land parcel itself. As Miller notes, “Perversely, and counter-intuitively, property values will recover the moment that reconstruction begins.” Secondly, their residents often own private insurance or possess a degree of wealth that would allow them to rebuild. “For marginalised communities like non-English speakers and the undocumented,” losing one’s home to a fire can be particularly devastating as they don’t have the resources like insurance to rebuild, says Shypard. California’s wildfire crisis is as much a social and political problem as it is an ecological one. The expansion of housing into fire-prone areas reflects a dangerous intersection of urgent needs and misplaced priorities: a desperate bid to address the state’s housing shortage, driven by profit motives and enabled by permissive policies.
