{"id":170801,"date":"2026-01-06T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatecouncil.org.au\/?post_type=resource&p=170801"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:58:13","slug":"when-cities-burn-could-the-los-angeles-fires-happen-here","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/www.climatecouncil.org.au\/resources\/when-cities-burn-could-the-los-angeles-fires-happen-here\/","title":{"rendered":"When Cities Burn: Could the Los Angeles fires happen here?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In January 2025, in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere\u2019s winter, Los Angeles was overrun by a firestorm that killed 31 people, destroyed more than 16,000 structures, and left one of the world\u2019s best-resourced firefighting teams overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This prompted an immediate, and unsettling question for many Australians: could something like this happen here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our new analysis brings together the latest science, climate trends and fire behaviour research to provide the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The uncomfortable truth is that many of the factors that led to the LA disaster are already present in Australia \u2014 and getting worse. Climate pollution from burning coal, oil and gas is supercharging heat, drying out landscapes, lengthening fire seasons and fuelling more extreme fire weather across fire-prone regions.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australians have already experienced fires with the same hallmarks of the LA fires: drought- parched forests, strong winds, low humidity, explosive fire behaviour, and unstoppable fire fronts that fire agencies, no matter how well-resourced, struggle to respond to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2003, it happened in Canberra. In 2009, Black Saturday hit Victoria. Tasmania and the NSW Blue Mountains were ablaze in 2013. Then, the national megafires of 2019-20: the Black Summer bushfires; the most destructive and widespread in Australia on record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Australia has not yet experienced \u2014 but is increasingly at risk of \u2014 is what Los Angeles endured: a major fire hitting a major city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our latest analysis explains that millions more Australians now live on the expanding outskirts of our capital cities and major regional centres, where homes adjoin highly flammable bush and grasslands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These at-risk communities \u2014 from the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Perth Hills, Adelaide Hills, the Blue Mountains, Sydney suburbs, NSW Central Coast, Hobart\u2019s suburbs and Canberra\u2019s western edge \u2014 are already some of the most fire-exposed urban areas in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this report, we outline how climate change played an instrumental role in supercharging the main factors that underpinned the Californian catastrophe, and compare those conditions across Australia\u2019s capital cities. We also explain why firefighters are increasingly facing fires they cannot stop; and what must be done to protect Australian lives, homes and communities as extreme fire weather intensifies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We still have a choice on just how dangerous future fire conditions become. Now is the time to reduce climate pollution further and faster, to adapt our cities, and prepare our fire services and communities for a future increasingly at risk of devastating bushfires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Key findings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1. The shocking 2025 wildfires that ripped through Los Angeles neighbourhoods in the middle of winter were supercharged by climate pollution.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n