One month ago we reported on a huge upsurge of wildfires, once again threatening California. When the article was published, the flames were dying down. Now they’re back

The latest wildfires reinforce warnings made decades ago by the Marxist cultural critic and urban theorist  Mike Davis about reckless development, ecological destruction and the political refusal to confront predictable catastrophe. As flames again threaten homes and thousands flee, the Trump administration continues its retreat from climate protection.

Fires return

Once again, California is burning. Once again, residents are fleeing their homes, firefighters are struggling against fierce winds, and neighbourhoods that appeared secure only hours earlier are confronting the possibility of destruction. And once again, the fires demonstrate the continuing relevance of warnings made by scientists, environmentalists and radical critics of American urban development, driven by vast profits to be made in California’s affluent areas.

The late Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear, spent decades explaining precisely this combination of ecological danger and political irresponsibility.

The latest events provide another powerful illustration of his analysis.

Homes destroyed, thousands evacuated

On 16 October, the Norte Fire erupted in Orange County, spreading through the hillsides and residential districts of San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. Driven by hot, dry Santa Ana winds, flames moved from surrounding vegetation towards established neighbourhoods, reportedly damaging or destroying at least six homes.

Around 16,000 residents were affected by evacuations, while firefighters struggled to protect threatened properties.

The Los Angeles Times, reporting on 17 October, described the fire as having:

“hollowed out several stately homes on Via La Mirada”

The description captures the speed with which fire can penetrate residential areas. Families escaped through smoke and falling embers, sometimes abandoning almost everything they owned.

One resident, Susan Kannakko, described the flames approaching:

“All I could see was flames — left, right, and to the sky.”

Elsewhere, the Henderson Fire near Camp Pendleton burned thousands of acres, threatening military installations and disrupting traffic on Interstate 5. The Bryson Fire near Malibu brought further evacuations, while other outbreaks threatened communities north of Los Angeles.

The Guardian, reporting on 16 October, described:

“a fast-moving fire spread into neighbourhoods in southern California”

The newspaper also reported precautionary electricity shutoffs as utilities attempted to prevent further ignitions.

These are not isolated emergencies. They are recurring episodes in a continuing crisis.

Mike Davis‘ warnings

Mike Davis, who died in October 2022, was among the most penetrating critics of the relationship between California’s urban expansion and its destructive natural hazards.

In Ecology of Fear, published in 1998, Davis examined the consequences of building residential communities in landscapes historically exposed to wildfire, floods, earthquakes and landslides.

His celebrated essay, The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, challenged the assumption that expensive residential developments could be endlessly protected against the ecological characteristics of the land they occupied.

Davis was not arguing that people should be abandoned to disaster. His argument was that the protection of expensive properties in dangerous locations consumed enormous public resources while poorer communities frequently received inadequate protection against hazards of their own.

His analysis went beyond environmental risk. He understood that the geography of disaster was also shaped by class, property ownership and political power.

The expansion of suburbs into chaparral-covered hillsides created an increasingly dangerous boundary between residential development and naturally flammable landscapes.

Fire is not an unusual intrusion into the ecology of Southern California. It is part of that ecology. The danger becomes catastrophic when development policies ignore this fundamental reality.

Davis understood that the real scandal was not simply that fires occurred, but that governments and property developers continued creating the conditions in which predictable fires could become human disasters.

His insistence was that political action, rather than resignation, remained necessary.

Climate crisis intensifies existing danger

California’s wildfire history long predates industrial climate change. Santa Ana winds, summer droughts and fire-adapted vegetation have shaped the landscape for centuries.

But human-induced global warming is making many of the conditions associated with destructive fires more dangerous.

Higher temperatures increase atmospheric demand for moisture, drying soils and vegetation. Extended periods of hot weather can create highly combustible fuels, while extreme weather compounds the risks facing communities already exposed to wildfire.

Climate change does not explain every ignition, nor can any individual fire automatically be attributed to global warming. Its importance lies in altering the background conditions in which fires develop and spread.

The Guardian reported on 15 October that forecasters expected strong Santa Ana winds and critical fire weather across Southern California. Gusts in some mountain areas were forecast to reach 70 miles per hour.

The pattern is particularly alarming because California faces interacting environmental hazards. Wildfires remove vegetation that stabilises hillsides. Subsequent heavy rainfall can produce destructive debris flows and landslides.

Thus a community surviving a wildfire may still face serious danger when winter storms arrive.

The climate crisis is not merely producing isolated disasters. It is increasing the possibility that one emergency will prepare the conditions for another.

Michigan: a warning beyond California

The danger is not confined to the Pacific coast. During 10–11 October, wildfires also spread through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where unusually dry conditions had left forests vulnerable to rapid ignition and fire growth.

The Michigan fires underline the wider significance of the problem. Wildfire danger is not confined to California’s traditionally fire-prone landscapes. Drought and unusually warm conditions can create dangerous fire weather across other parts of the United States.

Washington’s contempt for climate warnings

Against this background, the environmental policies of President Donald Trump’s administration appear increasingly detached from the realities confronting American communities.

Rather than strengthening the country’s response to global warming, the administration has pursued the weakening of federal environmental protections, reductions in climate-related research and the reversal of regulations intended to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

In January 2026, the Guardian reported that the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency had initiated 66 actions to weaken or reverse environmental protections during Trump’s first year back in office.

The administration has defended these measures as necessary reductions of burdensome regulation, arguing that environmental protections can be maintained without imposing excessive economic costs.

But this argument neglects the enormous economic and social costs of climate-related destruction.

Every home lost to wildfire represents more than an insurance claim. Families lose possessions, neighbourhoods are disrupted, businesses close, public services are interrupted and emergency workers face increasing danger.

The costs are borne by society, including people who have contributed least to the emissions driving global warming.

Warnings about worsening fire conditions are not speculative predictions from distant environmental campaigners. They are grounded in decades of research, observations and increasingly sophisticated climate modelling.

To dismiss or marginalise that evidence while communities face repeated destruction is a profound failure of political responsibility.

A disaster that has become predictable

There is a terrible familiarity about the latest Californian fires. The winds rise, the vegetation dries, evacuation orders are issued and the flames reach homes built in dangerous locations.

Firefighters respond with extraordinary courage. Politicians promise assistance. Residents begin the painful work of recovery.

Then, too often, the underlying conditions remain unchanged.

The persistence of this cycle is precisely what makes Mike Davis’s analysis so relevant.

Davis understood that disasters are shaped by political decisions made long before the emergency begins. Where housing is built, whose property is protected, how public money is allocated and whether environmental warnings are taken seriously all determine the eventual human consequences.

The latest fires do not prove that every detail of Davis’s predictions was correct. They do, however, provide striking confirmation of his central warning: a society that repeatedly places development and private profit above ecological realities is manufacturing its own vulnerability.

The previous article’s warning therefore remains urgent. California’s fires are not simply unfortunate episodes of extreme weather. They are evidence of a deepening contradiction between the physical limits of the environment and the priorities governing American economic development.

The choice ahead

California cannot eliminate wildfire from its landscape. Nor can improved firefighting alone overcome the consequences of a warming climate.

What is required is a combination of serious emissions reductions, stronger building standards, responsible land-use planning, better protection for vulnerable communities and sustained investment in prevention and emergency services.

Above all, it requires governments willing to acknowledge the scale of the danger.

Mike Davis recognised that environmental catastrophe was inseparable from questions of political power and social inequality. His warnings have lost none of their force.

The flames sweeping through California in October 2026 offer another reminder that the future he feared is no longer hypothetical.