This is the worst fire the Pacific Palisades has ever seen, experts say

The Pacific Palisades, one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S., is experiencing the worst fire in its history.

Nestled in the lower hills of the Santa Monica mountain range on the Westside of Los Angeles, the Pacific Palisades is known for its multimillion-dollar mansions, high-profile residents and proximity to Hollywood.

California is no stranger to extreme wildfires. The Los Angeles area is no stranger to drought or fires. And while there have been burns in the Pacific Palisades in the past, never to the magnitude to which the Palisades Fire is currently burning, Edith de Guzman, a water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the University of California Los Angeles, told ABC News.

"That area has seen fire again and again, but typically, emergency crews are able to handle the demands of those fires and put them out before they become a threat to life and property," who lives nearby, just outside the evacuation zone. "But clearly, given the conditions this week, that was not a possibility for them."

The Palisades Fire has reduced entire neighborhoods to ash, destroying hundreds of homes, including the residences of celebrities like Billy Crystal, Steve Guttenberg and Eugene Levy. Thousands of people were evacuated from the Palisades, with some reports of people having to ditch their cars on clogged roadways to escape the fast-moving fire on foot.

This is the worst fire the Pacific Palisades has ever seen, experts told ABC News -- and it's nowhere near over.

"Mars would be more habitable than this place right now so it's crazy. There's absolutely nothing," Shaun, a resident of the Palisades Bowl community, told ABC News on Thursday.

As of Friday morning, the Palisades Fire, the largest of five major fires burning in the Los Angeles area, had burned through more than 20,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades -- located about 20 miles from Downtown Los Angeles -- and was just 6% contained as firefighters struggle to control the embers being blown by high Santa Ana winds. The Palisades fire is currently the third-most destructive in California history, according to state data.

Aerial of the Pacific Palisades

The topography previously shielded the Pacific Palisades from the worst of fires

The Palisades' unique location has protected the most severe wildfires from spreading there.

Because the Palisades are on the foothills of the Santa Monica mountain range, strong Santa Ana winds would essentially blow past the neighborhood, Hugh Safford, a research fire ecologist at the University of California Davis, told ABC News.

"Because you're at the base of the hill, the wind's gonna blow any fire up to the north," Safford said.

But the strong, hurricane-force winds did blow down this time. In the atmosphere, the upper-level support lined up with the surface gradient, which caused a strong colder air subsidence, or sinking, north-northeast over the region, Curt Kaplan, a retired operational forecaster for the National Weather Service in Oxford, California, told ABC News.

"If you get a wind from the north, it's basically a death trap" for the communities in the foothills, Safford said.

The erratic pattern of the Santa Ana winds also contributed to the fire's ability to spread, De Guzman said, adding that the strong winds typically flow in a more narrow and predictable pattern.

And since the Palisades are on the wildland-urban interface -- hillside and foothill areas adjacent to more urban areas -- those homes are more susceptible to fire threats after ignition due to the surrounding vegetation, said De Guzman, whose research includes climate and urban planning

Once the ignition occurred, there was ample dry vegetation as well as homes made primarily of wood structures that engulf easily De Guzman said.

Yards with wooden decks and patio furniture designed to enjoy the temperate Southern California climate are also extremely flammable, Safford said.

Climate whiplash has impacted the region over the last two winters

Southern California has experienced extremes between excess precipitation to drought conditions in the past two years.

Two "extraordinarily" wet winters in 2023 and 2024 were followed by a dry period starting in February 2024 and lasting through now, De Guzman said. So all of the extra vegetation that quickly sprouted as a result of the plethora of moisture then dried out, becoming ample fuel that could explode once ignited. Just 0.16 inches of rain has fallen in the region since May 6, according to the National Weather Service.

"This means that the periods of very dry vegetation are increasingly overlapping with the traditional season of strong and dry offshore winds, which is what we're seeing," De Guzman said.

The Pacific Palisades was a tinderbox waiting to happen, the experts said. Los Angeles is currently in severe drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update, released Thursday.