As the Los Angeles fires continue to rage, images from space now reveal just how quickly the blazes exploded.
On the morning of January 7, severe droughts and winds of up to 100 miles per hour whipped up wildfires in the affluent LA suburb of Palisades.
Since then, the infernos have killed at least five people, destroyed thousands of homes, and forced over 130,000 residents to evacuate.
Captured by a network of orbiting satellites, shocking photos show how the blazes spread to cover more than 27,000 acres in just three days.
As the blaze erupted on Tuesday, the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite spotted the first plumes of smoke stretching out over the Pacific Ocean.
In images taken only hours later, NASA’s Aqua satellite showed how the blaze had already spread into the winding streets of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood.
And, in timelapse footage captured by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) you can see how powerful Santa Ana winds drove the infernos to spread rapidly through the city.
In a post on X, CIRA said: ‘The Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire continue their rapid growth near Los Angeles as both have scorched over 10,000 acres.’
January 8, 10:45 local time: This image uses shortwave infrared imaging to show the number of burning buildings in the Palisades region where a wildfire has been raging since January 7. Each red glowing square is an individual burning house. It is estimated that the fire has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in the neighbourhood
January 8, 10:45 local time: After beginning in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, fires soon started in the Eaton region (top right) where more than 10,000 hectares were soon scorched by the blaze. In this image, you can see the intense infrared radiation produced by the new fires burning in Eaton
January 7, 10:36 local time: This first image of the Palisades wildfire shows how the blaze began as a forest fire just west of Santa Monica
January 7: By the time NASA captured an image of the blaze later in the afternoon of January 7, the Palisades fire had spread exponentially and was producing a vast column of smoke
After the Palisades Fire burst into life on Tuesday morning, the first satellite images were captured by 10:45 local time.
The orbiting camera clearly shows how the fire began as a forest fire in a wooded region just west of Santa Monica.
By the time NASA captured an image of the blaze later that day the fire had spread out of control, going on to scorch more than 11,000 hectares by the afternoon of January 8.
Satellite images also show how multiple fires quickly erupted across the city.
A timelapse shared by CIRA shows the glow of a second wildfire appearing to the North in the Eaton neighbourhood.
In the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Eaton Fire claimed another 10,600 acres, another 1,000 structures, and killed at least five people, officials said.
Two new blazes erupted overnight in the Hollywood Hills and Studio City, causing a mandatory evacuation order to be issued in the celebrity hub.
The National Guard has been deployed and could send in military personnel to assist, amid revelations that firefighters are ‘triaging’ homes and neighbourhoods.
January 7: With extremely dry conditions and strong winds, the Palisades fire spread quickly inland and to the East into the populated areas of the Palisades neighbourhood
January 7, 14:54 local time: This satellite image captures the intense glow of the wildfire as it spread throughout the suburb, destroying more than 11,000 hectares by the afternoon of January 8
January 8: In the evening, blazes erupted in the northern area of Easton. The blaze has now killed five people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes
January 8: Firefighters battle the Eaton fire as it spreads across more than 10,000 hectares of northern Los Angeles
As of 20:45 local time (04:00 GMT) this morning, there are five fires actively burning in the city with zero per cent contained.
Firefighters have managed to completely contain two smaller fires while an additional fire in the Acton area has now been partly contained.
The incredible speed with which the fires can spread in these timelapse videos is due to a dangerous mixture of low rainfall and high winds.
The Santa Ana winds are a yearly period of high wind speeds which occur between October and January as a pressure gradient builds between the Great Basin to the east and the cooler Pacific to the west.
These winds drive dry, gusty wind down the side of inland mountain ranges, through the narrow canyons and out to the sea across Los Angeles.
This year the Santa Ana winds have blown at around 40 miles per hour (65 kmph) with gusts reaching 100 miles per hour (160kmph) in some areas.
These winds have whipped the fires up and driven them to spread far faster than they normally would.
Although these winds are not unusual, matters are made worse by the fact that LA is currently experiencing its driest start to the year since records began in 1944.
January 8, 12:21 local time: These satellite images show the glow of the Eaton fires beginning to spread throughout the following day
January 8: Overnight, two more fires erupted including one in the Hollywood Hills. A firefighting helicopter drops water as the fire burning in the Hollywood Hills last night
Mandatory evacuation orders have now been issued for Hollywood alongside Eaton and Palisades. More than 130,000 people have had to leave their homes as the fires spread
Los Angeles Airport has recorded just 0.08 centimetres of rain since October 1, creating ‘severe drought’ conditions across Los Angeles County.
As wind speeds drop, the fire risk has now been lowered from ‘extremely critical’ to ‘critical’ but there are still concerns that an already stretched fire service may be unable to cope.
Firefighters from six other states have been rushed to California, while an additional 250 engine companies with 1,000 personnel were being moved from Northern California to Southern California, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone told a press conference.
However, officials said that water shortages caused some hydrants to run dry in upscale Pacific Palisades.
‘We pushed the system to the extreme. We’re fighting a wildfire with urban water systems,’ Janisse Quinones, chief executive of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told a press conference.
Pacific Palisades relies on three tanks that hold about a million gallons (3.78 million litres) each, and the demand for water to fight fires at lower elevations was making it difficult to refill water tanks at higher elevations, she said.
By yesterday afternoon, all three of those tanks and all 114 reservoirs throughout the city were refilled, Ms Quinones said in a later press conference.
More than 130,000 people are under evacuation orders with Mandy Moore, Cary Elwes and Paris Hilton among the stars who said they had lost homes.
The fires have been made worse by powerful Santa Ana winds with gusts of up to 100 mph (160 kmph). Although not unusual for this time of year, the winds have pushed the fires to spread even faster. Pictured: a firefighter extinguishes a home burning in the Eaton fire
Los Angeles County is experiencing its driest start to the year since records began with ‘severe drought’ warnings in place throughout most of the county, leading to extremely high fire risks
Nearly 300,000 homes and businesses lost power in Los Angeles County, down from nearly 1 million earlier yesterday, according to PowerOutage.us.
Private forecaster AccuWeather estimated initial damage and economic loss at more than $50billion (£40billion).
‘This firestorm is the big one,’ Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told a press conference after rushing back to the city, cutting short an official trip to Ghana.
But furious residents have blasted their mayor for travelling to Africa while the city burns, despite having ample warning about ‘critical’ weather conditions in the days before.
HOW DO WILDFIRES AFFECT LOCAL TEMPERATURES?
Wildfire smoke lingering in the air can block out the sun enough to cause measurable temperature differences at the surface, even after the flames have died down.
Scientists say the interactions between smoke and the sun’s rays can either cool the air or warm it; when the rays are scattered, the air becomes cooler, while temperatures rise when the rays are absorbed.
Pictured, the San Francisco skyline is obscured by smoke and haze from wildfires behind Alcatraz on Nov. 14, 2018
A study published earlier this year found that the cooling effect can even extend to river and stream temperatures.
Brown carbon, in particular, has been found to have a significant effect, as it is more likely than black carbon to reach higher levels of the atmosphere, according to NASA.
But, the space agency explains, ‘as particulate matter in the atmosphere, both can interfere with solar radiation by absorbing and scattering the sun’s rays.’
Brown carbon is a major product of wildfires, as it’s created when grasses, wood, and other biological material burns.
‘Most of the brown carbon released into the air stays in the lower atmosphere, but we found that a fraction of it does get up into the upper atmosphere, where it has a disproportionately large effect on the planetary radiation balance – much stronger than if it was at the surface,’ Rodney Weber, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, said last year in a study on the phenomenon.
The graph above shows the amount of sunlight reflected by the landscape after a forest fire in North America (NA), Eurasia (EU), north east Eurasia (NEEU), southern Eurasia (SEU) and northwest Eurasia (NWEU)
Fires can also cause temperatures to drop by transforming the landscape, and increasing a property known as albedo – or the measure of light reflected by a surface.
As vegetation is destroyed in the fires, there is less foliage to absorb the sunlight and its warmth.
Studies in recent years have found that the resulting cooling effect can linger for years, particularly during the winter months.
