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On January 8th, a particularly striking image appeared on social media. A photograph depicted a large collection of crockery and fine China submerged in a swimming pool, an effort by an elderly woman residing in the Palisades to protect her belongings from the encroaching wildfires.

As the situation unfolded, it became evident that this event was not merely another wildfire typical of California’s annual fire season, often attributed to accidents such as gender reveal parties. The fire proved devastating on multiple levels, not only destroying the homes of celebrities but also severely impacting working-class communities living paycheck to paycheck.

Simultaneously, social media reactions included expressions of schadenfreude, with some individuals celebrating the destruction of wealthy homeowners’ properties. However, rather than being perceived as a form of justice, such events should serve as a dire warning to address an urgent crisis. Yet, instead of prioritizing climate action, the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreementa response that appears incongruent with the escalating impact of climate change on its citizens.

The Palisades Fire erupted on the morning of January 7 in Pacific Palisades, a Los Angeles neighborhood east of Malibu, as a brush fire. The blaze grew to 23,448 acres before being declared 100% contained on Friday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Cal Fire reported that the fire damaged or destroyed more than 6,800 structures.

The Eaton Fire ignited just hours after the Palisades Fire near a canyon in the sprawling national forest lands north of downtown Los Angeles. It quickly spread to 14,021 acres before being fully contained, according to Cal Fire, which reported that 10,491 structures were damaged or destroyed in the blaze.

Is Climate Change the Only Factor Behind Such Catastrophes?The answer is complicated. While contributing factors to worsening wildfires vary across regions and ecosystems, climate change is an overarching force affecting all areas, said Glen MacDonald, a UCLA distinguished professor of geography and the lead author of the paper Drivers of California’s Changing Wildfires: A State-of-the-Knowledge Synthesis.

While human sources are responsible for more than 90% of wildfire ignitions, the direct causes have shifted over time. Settler colonialism disrupted Indigenous cultural practices that once stewarded ecosystems and effectively prevented catastrophic wildfires, said Beth Rose Middleton Manning, a UC Davis professor and co-author of the paper.

“The significant reduction of the use of fire by Indigenous peoples following colonization, the introduction of grazing livestock (which reduced fine fuels and decreased surface fire activity), aggressive fire suppression in the 20th century, and early timber harvest practices (which removed large trees and increased surface fuels) resulted in stand densification by fire-intolerant species and increased fuel loading in some California forests, leading to increasingly severe fires in these ecosystems,” the authors wrote.

“A forest can’t be overgrown if you want to foster the species you need for basketry and medicine,” Middleton Manning explained. Because forests were home to Indigenous communities, they regularly cleared brush and used fire to hunt, harvest traditional foods, and maintain paths for transportation.

Late in the 20th century, some wildfire-causing sources, such as cigarette smoking, declined. However, human development expanded into fire-prone areas, leading to more ignitions from cars, power lines, and other infrastructure.

Wildfires have also become more destructive because Indigenous fire management practices were disregarded and lost over centuries due to European colonialism. Respect for the land is deeply embedded in Indigenous cultures, and their traditional environmental practices contributed to the stability of ecosystems worldwide.

These methods may not have followed modern peer-reviewed scientific protocols, but they have historical precedence, passed down through generations. Science has now confirmed that climate change is a post-industrial, human-induced catastrophe. It is time to revisit pre-colonial and pre-industrial anthropological data and examine Indigenous practices through the lens of modern science and technology. This approach could reveal hidden solutions and help prevent future disasters.

Kazi Rhid is a Strategy Associate at Centre for Governance Studies

Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.