The investigation into the worst wildfire raging in Los Angeles is zeroing in on a well-liked climbing path — the place one other hearth broke out simply six days earlier, quickly after fireworks marked the beginning of New 12 months’s Day.
A cul-de-sac near the Cranium Rock trailhead within the Palisades was closed off with yellow warning tape Monday as cops helped federal brokers and scientists meticulously study the favored climbing path space.
Lead investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed to the Wall Avenue Journal that they’re inspecting doable connections to the Palisades Fireplace and a smaller one in the identical space that began minutes into 2025.
“We’re looking at every possibility, going down every rabbit hole, and examining video footage from residents in the area,” native ATF spokesperson Ginger Colbrun informed the paper.
Pictures confirmed that each fires began in nearly the identical a part of the trailhead, which hyperlinks to standard trails in Temescal Ridge within the Santa Monica Mountains.
Within the first hearth, locals had shared footage of the flames rising earlier than 1 a.m. on New 12 months’s Day — quickly after some raised fears that fireworks being set off there would begin such a blaze, the WSJ famous.
Then six days later, folks on the identical WhatsApp chat reported flames there on Jan. 7.
“Same spot!!” one neighbor wrote — a minute earlier than the official begin time given for the Palisades Fireplace, the WSJ famous.
Neighbors had been alerted to it being a “possible reignition” from the sooner hearth, which Scott Sweetow, a retired ATF agent and arson skilled, informed the WSJ can be a key a part of the continuing investigation.
Nonetheless, he doubted the extinguished hearth may have merely been rekindled, on condition that they had been six days aside.
Investigators can be in search of any embers from a cigarette or a flame for a lighter, with canine looking the hills for traces of gasoline or different flammable liquids, Sweetow added.
Keep updated with the NYP’s protection of the terrifying LA-area fires
Officers have beforehand mentioned it possible had “human origins,” with out detailing precisely what.
Not like the primary blaze, which was rapidly extinguished, locals say it took no less than 45 minutes for firefighters to reach final Tuesday, which critics say possible allowed the Palisades Fireplace to develop uncontrolled.
It additionally emerged Tuesday that greater than 1,000 firefighters and 40 water-carrying vehicles had been reportedly stored out of the road of motion within the first few essential hours of the blaze.
Simply 5 hearth engines had been despatched to battle the Palisades hearth, in line with paperwork obtained by the Los Angeles Instances.
A number of fires have now been raging within the better Los Angeles space for over every week, killing 25 folks and destroying greater than 12,000 buildings.
An space the dimensions of Brooklyn has been ravaged as a number of wildfires, pushed by highly effective Santa Ana winds, have torn by neighborhoods.
In addition to the Palisades Fireplace, the opposite greatest has been the Eaton Fireplace within the northeastern suburb of Altadena.
