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Flames from the Palisades Fire burn along the ridge line near Mandeville Canyon while fire crews attempt to prevent northern expansion toward homes around and into the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, Calif. on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2024. The fire has set in place new evacuation warnings and can be seen near Encino and Tarzana neighborhoods. (Photo by Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Firefighters continue to make progress containing the Palisades and Eaton Fires Monday, after the blazes spent almost a week out of control.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the Eaton Fire was one-third contained. Meanwhile, the Palisades Fire is hovering around 14% containment. The Kenneth, Sunset, and Lidia Fires are all 100% contained, and the figure for the Hurst sits at 89%.
But readers may find this nomenclature confusing. When authorities report that a fire is “contained,” it does not necessarily mean it has been extinguished.
According to Cal Fire, “containment is a measure of the amount of line around a wildfire. Line is a barrier to fire growth, such as bare mineral soil, rocky outcrop, burnt fuel or manmade zones like a hand dug line or bulldozer line. Under predicted circumstances, a fire can be expected to burn to the line, but not beyond.”
In other words, containment measures the portion of a fire which is surrounded by obstacles which should stop it from spreading further. The fire might still burn within these boundaries, but is not expected to move beyond them.
So, when authorities say that the Eaton Fire is 33% contained, that means that a third of its perimeter has been cut off from expanding, either by manmade fire breaks, areas where all fuel has already combusted, or existing features like roads and water.
While authorities only provide these figures when they are confident that the fire will not spread beyond its containment lines, it is possible for unforeseen circumstances to change this. Heavy winds can cause fires to jump across barriers, expanding in ways which defy earlier expectations.
When you see containment numbers reported, remember that they refer to how much the fire is likely to grow in the future, not how much has already been put out.
