LA Was Not Always a Desert

Los Angeles was once a land of water. Wetlands, seasonal creeks, and intertidal zones covered large swaths of what is now cityscape. Ballona Creek once flowed freely, regularly flooding the low-lying plains between Santa Monica and Culver City. Santa Monica Canyon and the LA River supported vibrant ecosystems that retained soil moisture and reduced fire spread. But these moisture-rich environments were methodically eliminated to make room for roads, homes, ports, freeways, and back yard living rooms.

The Road to Fire

The city's transformation began in the 1920s with the construction of roads like Via de la Paz and freeways like the Arroyo Seco Parkway. These routes were often built directly on top of wetlands or seasonal creeks, replacing moisture-retaining landscapes with impervious, heat-absorbing asphalt. Highway engineers used a technique called sand drain technology to dry out wetlands beneath roads and infrastructure, accelerating subsidence and releasing methane, CO2, and other greenhouse gases in the process.

These desiccation strategies—like forcing hot air through the Palisades bluffs to stop landslides—were sold as technological fixes to environmental threats. But they failed to stabilize the landscape and instead deepened ecological degradation.

The Great Drainage

From the 1930s onward, flood control and urban development projects channeled the LA River and Ballona Creek into concrete coffins. These rivers, once vital to replenishing underground water tables, could no longer hydrate the soil or support native vegetation. At the same time, the city siphoned water from the Owens Valley and Mono Basin, turning distant ecosystems into deserts to irrigate new green suburbs and garden highways.

Manufacturing Drought

These engineered interventions—combined with paving, grading, and urban sprawl—disrupted LA's hydrological cycle. They didn’t just make the land drier; they made the air hotter, the vegetation more stressed, and the city more flammable. The very infrastructures meant to protect the city from fire, flood, and landslides undermined its long-term resilience.

The Mirage of Drought Tolerance

Compounding the problem is Los Angeles’ approach to residential landscaping. In the name of water conservation, the city has prioritized drought-tolerant plantings, gravel beds, and even artificial turf—especially in high fire severity zones. But these so-called “solutions” often exacerbate fire risk.

Drought-tolerant landscapes are frequently dry by design. They lack the deep soil hydration and canopy cover that help maintain moisture in the microclimate around a home. Gravelscapes and plastic grass retain heat, reflect it onto adjacent structures, and do nothing to cool or humidify the air. In contrast, layered, shaded plantings with well-hydrated soil can act as a fire buffer—slowing the spread of embers and protecting structures from radiant heat.

This is the great mistake: in treating water as the enemy, Los Angeles has removed one of its most effective defenses against wildfire. Instead of embracing resilient, moisture-holding gardens with native trees and understory plants, policy has favored sterile, fire-prone aesthetics. The result is a built environment that is hotter, drier, and more combustible.

Indigenous Knowledge Ignored

Before colonization, the Tongva people adapted to fire-prone ecosystems by living in seasonal alignment with natural cycles. Their architecture and land practices embraced mobility and fire resistance. Today, we ignore that wisdom and instead double down on techno-solutions that create more risk.

A Century of Consequences

The 2025 Pacific Palisades and Eaton Fires are not isolated disasters. They are the outcome of a century of landscape manipulation under the guise of progress. Each road and freeway carved into a wetland, each channelized creek, and each engineered bluff has contributed to the drying and heating of Los Angeles. The damage is cumulative and ongoing.

The Real Lessons of Urban Fire

Los Angeles burns not just because of climate change, but because of choices made over decades to conquer and control nature. As the city now turns to vegetation clearance mandates and more hardscape in the name of fire safety, it risks repeating the same mistake: trusting the next engineering fix to solve a problem rooted in ecological disruption.

To truly protect Los Angeles from fire, we must understand its hydrological past, stop manufacturing drought, and restore the ecosystems that once made this region resilient. The story of fire in Los Angeles is a story of loss—but also one of misguided faith in engineering. It's time to reclaim the land, rehydrate the soil, and rethink the logic that made it burn.