Devastating Los Angeles wildfires highlight national security risks too
Introduction
The ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles, California, driven by a mix of intense winds, dry conditions and brush exacerbated by climate change, and dense development in wildfire-prone areas, have devastated the lives and livelihoods of many of the area's residents. The confluence of risks leading to these unprecedented fires presented an incredibly difficult challenge to overcome. At times, fire hydrants ran dry as sky-high demand for water for firefighting strained municipal systems not designed for fast-moving wildfires, and the heavy winds grounded firefighting aircraft. Still ongoing, the wildfires are on pace to be the costliest in US history.
These devastating winter fires and the unprecedented damage they have caused also illustrate how climate change threatens domestic security, with significant implications for broader US national security concerns. These risks include the fires' direct harm to Americans, impacts and demands on the military and first responders, domestic and foreign misinformation risks that have arisen during the fires, and disruptions to other foreign policy priorities. The response to the wildfires also underscores the importance of subnational, national, and international cooperation to address such risks. The unprecedented nature of the fires and other recent disasters across America, like Hurricanes Milton and Helene, and their broader consequences, underscore the security imperative of planning for future risks and recalibrating the national security apparatus to handle such "actorless" threats that do not derive from any one state or non-state adversary.
Harm to American lives and livelihoods
First and foremost, the wildfires threaten the lives, health, and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Americans in and around the United States' second-biggest city. Since last week, 5 wildfires have killed at least 25 people, destroyed 12,000 structures, placed more than 300,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings, and burned more than 43,000 acres (roughly equal to the area of Washington, DC). Local officials have declared unhealthy air quality for the Los Angeles County region, with millions of people exposed to smoke that exacerbates conditions like asthma and can pose a threat to even the healthiest individuals. The fires have forced hospitals and care facilities to evacuate, divert resources, or curtail operations. When evacuees return to their homes, they may face health risks, including cancer from toxic chemicals in fire retardants. Meanwhile, given damage estimates of $135-$150 billion, the fires could further strain the US disaster recovery system and accelerate California's fire insurance crisis in ways that exacerbate the economic fallout.
Military responses and impacts
The National Guard and other parts of the US military are playing an important role in response to the fires. California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency and deployed 2,500 National Guard personnel to assist with firefighting, law enforcement, and evacuations. The Nevada and Wyoming National Guards and US Air Force Reserve have made additional contributions of personnel and C-130s equipped with Modular Airborne Firefighting Systems (MAFFS). The Department of Defense (DoD) has put 500 active-duty troops and equipment on standby to assist, prepared 10 Navy-provided helicopters to drop water, and activated 10 additional helicopters for search and rescue. This demand forces tradeoffs, with military personnel and equipment devoted to firefighting operations domestically unavailable to assist with national security missions overseas.
The fires also threaten defense assets and communities in the area. Military personnel and families assigned to Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Base Ventura County are facing curfews, power outages, travel restrictions, air pollution, and evacuations, all of which can undermine personnel readiness, morale, and health. The fire is also creating food, housing, and water insecurity for the approximately 3,000 unhoused veterans in Los Angeles and others who are economically insecure. Since 10 January, smaller fires have come within 5 miles of other sensitive military facilities, including the San Pedro Fuel Depot, Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, and Air Force Plant 42 (the site of classified aerospace development projects and Lockheed Martin's "Skunkworks"). Fires are affecting other critical transportation and national defense infrastructure, disrupting air travel, snarling highways and trucking, and threatening NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Misinformation risks
The fires also are the latest climate disaster to prompt domestic and international mis- and disinformation, complicating responses, contributing to societal polarization, and opening opportunities for malign foreign influence. With dubious information proliferating on social media, state authorities have had to refute inaccurate claims about evacuation zones, false calls for volunteer firefighters, AI-generated content of Los Angeles landmarks burning, and conspiracy theories about the cause of the fires. These challenges highlight the continued need to push back on misinformation, disinformation, and misleading narratives (or "malinformation") that exacerbate national security risks.
In addition to hindering relief, misinformation politicizing the fires risks undermining social cohesion and resilience and gives openings to bad actors. Mis- and disinformation tying the fires to other sociopolitical divides has spread broadly, with some inaccurately blaming the fires on 2022 donations of firefighting equipment to Ukraine, California diversity and inclusion policies, or conspiracies by celebrities and global elites. President-elect Trump and California Governor Newsom have clashed over Trump's false claim linking the wildfires to unrelated California endangered species protections and water policies. Others have overemphasized the impact of cuts to the LA Fire Department budget on the scale of damage.
Malign actors will also look to take advantage of the toxic information environment. Authorities will need to be alert to potential extremist exploitation of the wildfires, as has occurred after past California wildfires and other climate disasters. Internationally, Russian state media amplified narratives linking the fires to social policy debates, and Chinese state media argued that the damage in Los Angeles underscored the superiority of China's disaster response approach. Finally, to the extent wildfires interrupt or degrade Hollywood's role as a beacon of American culture and values, they could also harm what public diplomacy experts call "an invaluable source of soft power."
Geopolitics and competing crises
Finally, the wildfires demonstrate how increasingly severe and frequent climate disasters tax governmental bandwidth to address simultaneous crises. In response to the fires, President Joe Biden canceled the last foreign trip of his term, where he was set to meet in Italy with Ukrainian President Zelensky regarding the ongoing war. The canceled meeting comes at a critical time, as the Biden Administration has rushed to push $500 million in aid to Ukraine before potential changes in Ukraine policy. US-Ukraine coordination was similarly slowed by climate disasters in the fall when Biden was unable to meet Zelensky due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the US South and Mid-Atlantic. With the pace of billion-dollar disasters in the US growing consistently since 1980, successive climate disasters are increasingly likely to compete with or distract from other security priorities, whether Ukraine, Syria, or China-Taiwan.
The importance of subnational, national, and international coordination
The fires also highlight the critical importance of coordinated state, federal, and international action in responding to climate disasters. In addition to the deployment of National Guard forces, California has received civilian firefighting contributions from Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Washington state, a bright spot of cooperation among politically diverse state governments. California has also received military personnel and equipment from the Canadian Air Force and Mexican Ministry of Defense; and an offer of firefighters from Ukraine. At the US federal level, President Joe Biden issued a major federal disaster declaration, FEMA leadership deployed to the region and opened Fire Management Assistance Grants, the National Weather Service has provided forecasting on fire conditions, and the National Interagency Fire Center is coordinating with CalFire. Such coordination is critical in surging resources and bringing unique capabilities to bear, whether additional personnel, federal forecasting capabilities, or additional financial resources. Successful coordination draws on preexisting coordination mechanisms, contingency planning, and relationships-such as the California's National Guard's 30-year relationship with Ukraine as part of the State Partnership Program.
Conclusion
The wildfires in Los Angeles are the most severe in the city's history. The fires are ongoing but have already demonstrated key climate security dynamics-direct harm to Americans, the impacts on militaries, the misinformation risks, the challenge of managing competing crises, and the role of intergovernmental coordination. In an era of increasing disasters and a fractured policy environment, these security impacts of climate change can't be ignored.
