Revealed: The Iconic Feature L.A. Faces Having to AXE To Protect Against Future Killer Wildfires
Embers from burning palm trees helped spread the L.A. fires.
Jan. 29 2025, Published 4:30 p.m. ET
In the aftermath of the deadly and destructive Los Angeles fires, some are ready to say goodbye to a long-standing landmark of Southern California, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The fires, which have killed at least 29 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, spread quickly in part due to highly flammable palm trees.
The streets of Los Angeles are populated with giant palm trees.
Sky high palm trees have been synonymous with picture-perfect areas like Beverly Hills since the early 1900s, when the decorative plants were used by real estate developers to sell the city as a tropical paradise.
Donald Hodel, a retired environmental horticulture advisor at the University of California Cooperative Extension, Los Angeles County, previously told SFGate: "There was this land boom in Southern California. In an effort to lure people from the Eastern U.S. to California, so they could buy up this land that developers wanted to sell and develop, palms were planted in significant numbers with photographs put on promotional material."
The palm population exploded a few years later when 25,000 trees were planted in advance of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Another 40,000 were added as part of programs from the New Deal.
One estimate said at their height, as many as 75,000 palm trees reached the California sky.
A firefighter battles a burning palm.
That is, until earlier this month.
While there were a number of factors that contributed to the exploding fires, including heavy winds and dry conditions, fire officials say the non-native plants definitely deserve some of the blame.
Esther Margulies, a landscape architect and University of Southern California professor, told The Guardian: "Unfortunately, it makes logical sense" that they helped spread the fires.
She explained: "One Mexican fan palm frond is equivalent to a whole branch getting caught in the wind and moving, and when that gets caught on a roof, under an eave, or any other flammable material, that’s much more significant than a pine needle or a sycamore leaf."
All that is left of this house is a chimney and palm tree.
In the shadow of the still-smoking embers, many are calling for a change to the scenery.
Bryan Vejar, master arborist and associate director of community forestry at TreePeople, an environmental non-profit, told The Guardian: "I am sympathetic to the aesthetic history of LA, and I'm not of the mind that we should eradicate palms from the entirety of our landscape, but we should be more selective where they’re used.
"They shouldn’t be used on streets where we need to mitigate some of the heat island effects."
Stephanie Pincetl, professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities, agreed, telling the LA Times: "We don’t have to be draconian about this, but we have to be thoughtful."
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And the danger is not over, as Los Angeles is still set to face continued "explosive fire growth" in the coming months.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the threat of high winds could bring more devastation in the coming weeks as firefighters continue to fight the infernos, which have decimated several regions of California.
Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, made a chilling prediction about how fires could only worsen in the future.
He said: "There will be the potential for explosive fire growth as winds pick back up."
