Los Angeles is burning. Fossil fuel companies laid the kindling. Soon the world will stop caring.

I’m sorry for sounding callous, but it’s true.

You’ve probably seen the headlines, the photos, the evacuation maps. At least 25 people dead, more than 12,000 homes and other buildings destroyed, tens of billions of dollars in damage and losses. Maybe you or your family or friends were forced to flee. Maybe the monstrous winds kept you awake late into the night, full of terror.

This is what climate chaos looks like.

There was no coal baron who lighted the matches. No oil driller who dried out the terrain, priming Southern California to burn. No gas executive who decided to build residential neighborhoods in already fire-prone landscapes.

But a global economy built on fossil fuels — and a U.S. political establishment funded in great part by fossil fuel corporations and their allies — brought us to this point. After two wet winters fueled the growth of grasses and brush — ideal kindling for fires — across SoCal mountains and hillsides, the last few months saw an abrupt shift to record-dry conditions. This kind of weather whiplash is a hallmark of global warming.

Add explosive Santa Ana winds to the mix, and it’s a recipe for apocalyptic infernos.

Stepping out of my West L.A. apartment last week — wearing an N95 mask to avoid inhaling too many unhealthy particles — I was horrified by the gray-orange gloom from the Palisades fire blotting out much of the sky. My wife and I were soon inundated by calls and texts: You guys OK? Anything we can do to help?

Meanwhile, I read about oil giant Exxon Mobil suing California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, arguing Bonta has damaged the company’s reputation by accusing it of falsely promoting plastic recycling. I read about the nation’s largest financial institutions leaving the banking sector’s biggest climate coalition in the run-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. I read about Trump falsely accusing Gov. Gavin Newsom of somehow causing the fires.

Meanwhile, our cousin in the Hollywood Hills fled her home. Friends in Pacific Palisades lost theirs.

It’s awful. It’s infuriating. And it’s not going to stop the climate crisis.

The Palisades fire burns in the distance, as seen from the Santa Monica Pier on Jan. 7.

(Marcus Ubungen / Los Angeles Times)

For many Angelenos, this is our most jarring confrontation yet with global warming. But hundreds of millions of Americans have faced fossil-fueled disasters, and the politics of climate obstruction have hardly budged.

There was the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and leveled the Northern California town of Paradise. And the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, which contributed to an estimated 1,200 fatalities. Just a few months ago, Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton walloped the U.S. Southeast, collectively killing 250 people.

None of those climate disasters changed the fact that the Republican Party is almost totally beholden to the fossil fuel industry. None of them changed the fact that the Democratic Party, although largely committed to climate action — see President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — still hasn’t done nearly enough to phase out fossil fuels.

And none of them changed the fact that the billionaires and powerful executives who could do more than anyone to change the political landscape — many of them tech entrepreneurs, Hollywood stars and sports titans who live right here in L.A. — are typically more worried about making money than leaving the world a safer place.

Maybe this time will be different?

Don’t leave it to chance. Demand better.

When the flames recede, and the smoke clears, keep talking about the climate crisis. Bring it up on social media, over dinner. Make it a defining issue when you vote. Support businesses whose leaders and practices reflect your values. Subscribe to news outlets that report on climate. Drive electric, if you can. Take public transit.

In other words, let the rich and powerful know that weeks like this one are unacceptable.

Otherwise, the fires will change nothing.

On that note, here’s what else is happening around the West:

ON THE FRONT LINES

Firefighters battle the Palisades fire on Jan. 7.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Beyond the death and destruction, the half-dozen fires and more than 40,000 acres burned have disrupted everyday life in a way that’s difficult to understand if you don’t live here. School closures. Widespread power outages. Canceled surgeries and evacuated nursing homes. Lost work for film and TV crews already struggling to stay employed. Low-wage landscapers driving through smoke because they can’t afford to miss a day of work.

Trivial as it may sound in the grand scheme of things, sports were affected — a financial blow to businesses that depend on live event revenue, and a psychic blow to fans who love watching their favorite teams. The fires forced the NFL to move a Rams playoff game from Southern California to Arizona, The Times’ Sam Farmer reports.

Some wounds may never heal. My colleagues Colleen Shalby, Melissa Gomez and Brittny Mejia wrote about the devastation wrought by the Eaton fire in Altadena, a racially diverse, relatively affordable town in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Times’ James Rainey lamented the loss of his childhood home in Malibu.

On a personal note, I was sad to learn that the actor Will Rogers’ ranch house burned down; I’ve walked past that place so many times while hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains and always meant to take a tour. It was just one of many historic properties lost in the fires, from Altadena’s quirky Bunny Museum to the home of Western fiction writer Zane Grey. Climate change will only make preservation harder, The Times’ Daniel Miller reports.

There’s an understandable instinct to point fingers at a time like this, to look for scapegoats. And especially as the planet heats up, we absolutely need public officials and other powerful actors to give us their very best.

But we need to be guided by facts and science, not the loudest voices in the room.

For instance: Billionaire L.A. developer Rick Caruso and billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk seem to think better brush clearance in the mountains could have stopped or slowed the fires. But Times environment reporter Alex Wigglesworth asked actual fire experts, who told her the landscape was so dry — thanks, climate change — and the winds were so bad that better brush clearance probably wouldn’t have helped much, if at all.

Another example: The L.A. Department of Water and Power has taken a lot of heat over a loss of water pressure in fire hydrants, and a Pacific Palisades reservoir that was closed for maintenance when the fires started to burn. But experts say that firefighting conditions were so unprecedented that the agency was simply overwhelmed.

We should believe the scientists who dedicate their lives to understanding these issues. Sadly, misinformation and disinformation — that’s when the people spreading lies do it on purpose — are all the rage these days. The Times’ Karen Garcia has a guide to spotting fake news — and recognizing real journalism — as the fires burn.

All of which brings us back to one of the biggest factors underlying the infernos: climate change.

This map of Earth in 2024 shows how much warmer or cooler each region of the planet was compared with the average from 1951 to 1980. Higher-than-normal temperatures are shown in red and orange, and lower-than-normal temperatures in blue.

(NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio)

As my colleagues Corinne Purtill and Karen Kaplan report, 2024 was the planet’s hottest year ever recorded, beating the record set in 2023. Earth’s surface temperature was roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, a mark scientists say we should be trying desperately to avoid in future years. Fossil fuels were the main cause.

The fires serve as a powerful reminder that Los Angeles and other cities were not built for global warming — and that surviving continued temperature increases will require us to reimagine our infrastructure, our housing, our financial systems and more. A few stories that touch on these pressing challenges:

• L.A. County granted building permits for 24,300 homes in 2023. The fires have destroyed at least half that many buildings. Also, rents will probably increase in fire-stricken areas. (Liam Dillon, L.A. Times)
• To help wildfire victims rebuild their homes faster, Newsom is suspending certain requirements for building permits and environmental reviews. (Seema Mehta, Liam Dillon and Rosanna Xia, L.A. Times)
• California officials were just finalizing home insurance reforms designed to lure providers back to the market as climate-fueled wildfires pushed them away. Then the infernos struck. (Laurence Darmiento, L.A. Times)
• “As fires grow larger…should storage tanks and other local water infrastructure be expanded to contend with them? Where? And at what cost?” (Ian James, Matt Hamilton and Ruben Vives, L.A. Times)

We also need to cut down on fire ignitions — and that starts with figuring out how they’re happening now. In the San Gabriel Mountains, officials are investigating a Southern California Edison power tower as a possible ignition point for the Eaton fire, although Edison says it doesn’t believe its equipment was responsible.

As Los Angeles rebuilds — from these conflagrations and from future climate-tinged disasters — wealthy families and individuals will have an inherent advantage. Crafting recovery policies to support everyone else is an especially important part of responding to the climate crisis, Times columnist Anita Chabria writes.

Speaking of inequity, I was fascinated to read this story by my colleague Caroline Petrow-Cohen, in which private firefighters who work for rich homeowners make the case for their services as a useful economic efficiency.

Although the recovery process will be led by local officials, federal money will be needed. Perhaps unfortunately for L.A., that means relying on Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, The Times’ Kevin Rector writes.

“We live in a cocoon of denial, playing the odds and figuring we’re going to be OK,” columnist Steve Lopez writes, describing the joys and the terrors of living in a place as precarious as California. “But the order of things is different now in this age of accelerated climate change.”

Truer words.

ONE MORE THING

Billy Bob Thornton stars as Tommy Norris in “Landman.”

(Emerson Miller / Paramount+)

I wrote last week about my frustration with all the inaccurate fossil fuel propaganda in “Landman,” an otherwise entertaining Paramount+ streaming series from “Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan.

The finale aired this weekend, and there was a scene near the end that made me gasp.

I’ll spare you all the details. But, short version: In a quiet conversation with drug cartel boss Galino (Andy Garcia), Billy Bob Thornton’s character Tommy Norris finally acknowledges that the oil industry may have a limited future — after spending the whole season insisting there’s no technology that could possibly replace oil and gas.

“There’s no future in the product you sell,” Norris tells Galino.

“I’m more curious about the product you sell,” Galino responds.

“Mine’s running out of future too,” Norris says.

Has Norris believed any of the lies he has been telling all season? Has he been lying to himself? Is Sheridan going to take my advice and tell some stories next season about fossil fuels and renewables coming into conflict?

My fingers are crossed.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. Or open the newsletter in your web browser here.

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