The Los Angeles wildfires that began burning around on the city on Tuesday, Jan. 7, have been marked by two things: their speed and severity.

In just a handful of days, the blazes rapidly grew to some 29,000 acres or 45 square miles, roughly twice the size of Manhattan.

The total number of dead and injured is not yet known, although there have been reports of multiple fatalities and injuries.

The sudden danger has drawn widespread alarm and fueled questions about how the fires grew so fast, whether emergency officials have been able to respond appropriately and what other factors might be making the situation worse.

Here’s what we know.

The firestorm began in the Pacific Palisades at 10:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday, but there have since been other fires sparked around L.A., including another major blaze, the Eaton fire in Pasadena, Calif. 

The causes of fires are under investigation still, according to the state, and officials have said that they are considering various possibilities including arson.

“As soon as we have information, we will share that with all of you. I know there’s obviously, for the right reason, a lot of interest in that,” L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley told reporters.

Reporters and witnesses on the ground have also noted that embers from the flames spread quickly, leaping from structure to structure, thanks to strong winds — another way in which the flames have already covered so much ground.

Amid the crisis, people have also been arrested for suspected looting.

Simply put, according to experts, the fires have been fueled by severe winds and fed by dry vegetation, which grew in recent years thanks to high amounts of precipitation — that then became more vulnerable to fire in recent months as the rains dried up even when they historically wouldn’t have.

That created a situation in which L.A. was covered by fire-prone growth. 

And then this week, the winds made it more likely that any fire would grow quickly and have plenty to destroy.

Longer term, these forces are also shaped by climate change, experts say.

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“It is already January, but Southern California remains dry, gripped by drought and high temperatures,“ Jacob Bendix, a professor emeritus at Syracuse University, said in a statement. 

“Both drought and heat are known to be more likely in the context of human-caused climate change, so the fires burning now cannot be dismissed as anomalous events,” he said. “We must recognize that such fires are likely to become more common in the future. The news stories each time will fade after a few days or weeks, but the impacts in terms of lost homes and workplaces will last far longer for local residents, and virtually everyone in the region is likely to face escalating insurance costs, or difficulty obtaining insurance at all.”

Not exactly, officials say, instead blaming “tremendous demand” on the system in the Pacific Palisades, where the wildfires first broke out, for hydrants running temporarily low on pressure when firefighters needed them.

Still, that problem has spurred a wave of criticism of local leaders.

There was “four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure” in the Palisades, Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told reporters this week.

Quiñones said that three water tanks had gone dry and that there were problems maintaining water pressure in the supply lines.

“If there’s a message you take away from me today, is, I need our customers to really conserve water — not just in the Palisades area, but the whole system because the fire department needs the water to fight the fires,” Quiñones added.

Palisades Village mall owner Rick Caruso, a former mayoral candidate who ran against Democratic incumbent Karen Bass and former commissioner for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, spoke out about the water issues. 

“The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning and businesses burning,” he said, according to The Los Angeles Times. “It should never happen.”

Another point of contention for critics of the fire response has been reports that Bass cut the L.A. Fire Department’s budget.

The reality appears more complicated: According to data from the city’s controller, Kenneth Mejia, the department’s fiscal year budget for 2024-25 was decreased by $17.6 million — or about 2% of its total, ABC News reported. (Other major departments, like the police, parks and recreation and the city attorney, saw major bumps.)

Politico reports that additional money was then allocated to the department later last year.

According to KNBC, the budget cuts largely affected overtime pay, and Chief Crowley warned last month of what that might mean during “large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.”

Bass, when asked to comment this week, reportedly said she was “confident” the budget changes had no effect on the response.

Thousands of fire personnel hav been deployed, according to the state.

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.