Canyon Wildfire in Los Angeles Forces Thousands to Evacuate – Inside Climate News

Thousands are being forced to evacuate in Southern California as an explosive wildfire grows rapidly, fueled by extreme heat and dry conditions.

The Canyon Fire started Thursday afternoon and has spread quickly across more than 5,000 acres. It’s now moving east in Los Angeles County. Evacuation orders in northern Los Angeles County and Ventura County affected more than 4,000 people on Thursday and 2,700 on Friday, and an additional 14,000 residents have been warned to prepare to evacuate, according to officials. The fire was 25 percent contained as of Friday morning.

“The #CanyonFire is spreading fast,” wrote LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger on X on Thursday. She added that residents should “take evacuation orders seriously — when first responders say GO, leave immediately.”

This wildfire is the latest in a string in recent weeks that have blazed across North America and Europe, causing destruction and sending toxic smoke hundreds of miles afield. Climate change, largely caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels, is spawning more severe and deadly wildfires because heat and swings between rain and drought create dangerous conditions. 

More than 5,120 wildfires have burned through the state this year, causing 31 direct fatalities, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. That includes the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires in January, and a study released this week found that they likely contributed to more than 400 deaths. The Gifford Fire, the state’s largest fire this year, is still burning in Central California with nearly 100,000 acres scorched and ongoing evacuation orders.

Nationwide, more than 42,000 wildfires have cut a swath through 3.6 million acres across the country since the start of 2025. Thirty-nine large fires are currently blazing, including the Dragon Bravo fire in the Grand Canyon, which has been burning for more than a month and has spread over more than 126,000 acres—the equivalent of Washington, D.C., three times over. 

France’s largest wildfire in decades, now contained but still burning, began Aug. 5. Canada currently has more than 700 active wildfires—military forces were brought in Thursday to battle three that displaced hundreds in Newfoundland. 

Over the past decade, California has seen a stark increase in the acreage burned by wildfires, said Cal Fire spokesperson David Acuna. 

Climate change has led to sporadically wetter winters, fueling growth surges of grass that turns into heavy loads of fuel when it dries out during hot, drought-stricken summers. That means stronger, larger fires and greater destruction, Acuna said. Wildfire season in California is now year-round. 

“There just simply is no end to it,” Acuna said. “That’s why we refer to it as a ‘fire year’: We have to maintain readiness all year long.”

According to the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office, temperatures in the area were between 95 and 100 degrees on Thursday, with low humidity and wind gusts of 25 miles per hour. Combined with extremely dry fuel conditions, the winds exacerbated the fire. Firefighters are also working in steep and rugged terrain, said Ventura County Fire Department spokesperson Andrew Dowd.

“When you get an alignment of slope, dry fuels, high temperatures and winds, that’s the recipe for that rapid fire development and extreme fire behavior,” Dowd said. “That’s what we’re seeing.”

How to Stay Safe From Wildfire Smoke

In active wildfire zones, experts emphasize residents should heed evacuation warnings and pay close attention to emergency alerts.

In addition to the immediate dangers of an active fire, wildfire smoke causes dangerous lingering air pollution both nearby and many miles away from the source. Air quality warnings plagued large swaths of the country in recent weeks, with parts of the Midwest seeing some of the worst air quality in the world, according to the Swiss company IQAir. Several summer camps in Wisconsin told Wisconsin Public Radio that they adjusted programming to account for the pollution, which is particularly harmful to children.

Dr. Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician specializing in asthma in Southern California, said he sees exacerbated symptoms in his patients whenever a wildfire hits, both in children with asthma and healthy kids who come in feeling sick, with runny noses and coughs.

Exposure to wildfire smoke can make it harder to breathe, increasing emergency room visits for respiratory issues. It can also cause severe cardiovascular harm and even death. 

Wildfires in urban areas come with unique, added risks, El-Hasan emphasized, unleashing toxic chemicals as homes and materials like plastics burn. For weeks or months after a fire is put out, the air will continue to contain toxic ash and chemicals, he said, which makes it risky to return to these areas even after initial warnings have expired. 

El-Hasan, a board director of the American Lung Association, urges people to monitor air quality and minimize time spent outside when the air is bad. He also stressed the importance of using air filters indoors and stocking up on medications before a wildfire to reduce time outside. 

“Monitoring air quality and knowing when to be outside and when to avoid being outside has to reach the point of being a habit,” El-Hasan said. 

The American Lung Association’s latest report on nationwide air quality found that nearly half of the country is breathing hazardous air, and that wildfires are impacting millions of people across larger portions of the nation than previously.

The federal rollback of climate policies is at odds with the clear evidence of climate change’s impact on public health, said Will Barrett, assistant vice president of nationwide advocacy for clean air at the American Lung Association.

The Trump administration has undermined climate science, dismissed ties between air pollution and public health and made significant cuts to agencies like the National Park Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency—both of which play critical roles in wildfire response. Recently, The American Prospect reported, some FEMA employees were reassigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a law enforcement agency with more than 20,000 personnel that is set to receive an unprecedented infusion of billions in funding from the Trump administration.

In a statement to the Prospect on the reassignment, the Department of Homeland Security said the change would not disrupt FEMA’s critical operations, and that the agency remains prepared for hurricane season. The statement did not mention wildfires or other disasters.

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said of Trump administration deregulatory activities.

None of that changes the decades of scientific consensus on climate change and the dangers it poses, Barrett said.

There needs to be “more of a broad recognition that the increasing trend of catastrophic wildfires is really a primary symptom of the health emergency that is climate change,” he said. “It’s really unconscionable to be suggesting walking away from the reality of science underpinning the need for urgent action.”