How Wildfires Came for Southern California

The fire that razed Melise Gerber’s house raced from the dry slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles through thousands of tightly packed homes, through a beloved 1950s diner, a sprawling Victorian-style mansion, an entire strip of downtown stores — its damage extending miles from anything locals considered wilderness.The path of destruction confounds Ms.Gerber, 58, a Southern California native who for a quarter-century lived in her brick-red bungalow in Altadena, a historic town 15 miles northeast of downtown L.A.

Firefighters had always been able to quickly contain fires to the foothills above the city, she said.“My house had been there almost 80 years, and nothing had ever happened,” said Ms.Gerber, who works in marketing.

“I just don’t understand it.”The devastation from the two major fires that erupted in L.A.last week has stunned Californians, with more than 10,000 structures across the region destroyed and at least 27 people killed.

The damage, fueled by once-in-a-decade wind gusts and an extremely parched landscape, has reached much farther into cities than many residents thought possible.The destructive power of the infernos multiplied when they entered neighborhoods, fire scientists say: They transformed into urban fires, in which homes ignited one after the other — and little could be done to slow the spread.“The houses became the fuel,” said David Acuña, spokesman for Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency.“It’s a structure fire within a wildland fire, which is bad.

But then you multiply that by five or 10 structure fires, all at the same time, all being pushed by 100-mile-per-hour wind.It’s what people keep saying: It’s what appears to be Armageddon.”...