Science
During fires, L.A. burn centers braced for crisis that never came
When the fires erupted Jan. 7, burn centers across the Los Angeles region braced for an influx of patients, updating one another on the beds and staff available for critically injured people.
The Eaton and Palisades fires would ultimately claim at least 29 lives. Dozens of people would visit hospitals to seek care for minor burns or smoke inhalation.
But fortunately, the mass casualty situation burn specialists feared and prepared for didn’t materialize. The vast majority of injuries were minor enough that patients could be treated and quickly released.
“Our wildfire experience appears to have been somewhat binary,” said Dr. Vimal Murthy, a burn surgery specialist at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, one of the region’s three primary burn centers. “People [either] successfully evacuated with relatively few injuries, or they passed away remaining in their properties.”
Paramedics tend to a patient at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in this photo from Nov. 4, 2018.
(Los Angeles Times)
Dozens of people visited area emergency rooms seeking care for minor burns and smoke-related injuries. Nearly all were treated and released.
Five people sustained burns serious enough to merit hospitalization. Four patients were treated for severe burns at Grossman Burn Center in West Hills, medical director Dr. Peter H. Grossman said. Another was placed in critical condition for severe burns at Los Angeles General Medical Center.
On Jan. 25, a victim of the Palisades fire died in a hospital, according to the county medical examiner’s office. The office has not yet disclosed the person’s identity or the hospital where they died.
Tragic as the region’s losses are, burn specialists feared an even graver outcome in the fires’ explosive first 24 hours.
“I was extremely concerned we’d see a lot more patients than we actually did,” said Dr. Justin Gillenwater, chief of burn surgery at the Southern California Regional Burn Center at L.A. General, citing the rapid wind-driven spread of the fires and the congested escape routes.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Grossman said. “It’s tragic — the homes lost, the memories lost — but it’s also amazing how the human life and the human mortality and morbidity could have been so much worse.”
Dr. Peter H. Grossman, medical director of the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills, addresses the media on May 7, 2009.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times )
Doctors and disaster management experts attributed the low injury rate to people heeding early evacuation warnings — when they were received. All 17 deaths in the Eaton fire took place west of Altadena’s Lake Avenue, an area that didn’t receive emergency evacuation orders until the early morning hours of Jan. 8, when smoke and flames were already encroaching on the neighborhood.
In addition, the intense heat, rapid spread and unpredictable behavior of wildfires typically leaves “little opportunity for partial injuries,” said Annette Newman, the Western Region burn disaster coordinator for the American Burn Assn.
“Unlike house fires, where individuals might suffer severe burns but still be rescued, wildfire victims seem to experience either full escape or fatal outcomes due to the fire’s intensity and speed,” Newman said.
Though many elements of last month’s fires seem to have caught Los Angeles off guard, its burn care specialists were ready.
In November, L.A.’s burn centers joined 25 others across 13 western states for an exercise organized by the American Burn Assn.
In the simulated scenario, a fictional freight train carrying hazardous materials through a crowded area derails in a fiery explosion, burning or otherwise injuring 800 people.
The exercise tests hospitals’ readiness for mass-casualty events. Providers gamed out what to do in a situation where all local burn center beds were full, and patients needed to be transported to other trauma centers and non-specialty hospitals. They practiced using the Burn Watch Board, a dashboard created by the Nevada Hospital Assn. that provides live updates on hospital bed availability for burn patients.
This kind of advance planning is necessary, Newman said, because “burn injuries require highly specialized care and burn beds are limited.”
Pain management and infection control require constant vigilance. Patients swell as fluids leak from blood vessels and gather around damaged tissues; they lose the ability to keep warm and control their body temperature. They need specialized nutrition, physical therapy and psychological care, often for weeks or months after the initial injury.
The western region put its burn disaster plans into action on Dec. 31, when a massive explosion of illegal fireworks in Honolulu killed six people and injured more than 20.
That disaster highlighted the need for doctors to be able to upload data to the dashboard from their phones, Newman said. The feature was added just days before the Palisades fire erupted.
“There are very few types of injuries that are as painful as burn injuries,” Grossman said. “It really is pretty remarkable that in the face of all this … it could have been a heck of a lot worse.”
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with the naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.
The latest observable meteor shower will be the Lyrids, which has been active since April 14 and is forecast to continue through April 30. The shower reaches its peak April 21 to 22, or Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
According to NASA, the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers, and have been enjoyed by stargazers for nearly 3,000 years. Their bright, speedy streaks are caused by the dusty debris from a comet named Thatcher. They appear to spring from the constellation Lyra, which right now can be seen in the eastern sky at night in the Northern Hemisphere.
The moon will be about 27 percent full tonight, appearing as a thick crescent in the sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
To get a hint at when to best watch for the Lyrids, you can use this tool, which relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows fireball activity levels in real time.
And while you gaze at the heavens, keep an eye out for other stray meteors streaking across the night sky. Skywatchers are reporting that the amount of fireballs is double what is usually seen by this point in the year.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you probably won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to go to escape excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
Where weather is least likely to affect your view
Storm systems sweep across the country in early spring, and some will be obscuring skies tonight. But there will still be plenty of areas with clear skies, particularly in parts of the central United States.
“The best spot is going to be in the Upper Midwest,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa will offer especially good sky-viewing weather and a beach on the Great Lakes could be a nice spot to look up at the stars.
But don’t expect to view the show from Chicago, as Illinois could see some thunderstorms. The weather will be better in the Northern and Central Plains, particularly the eastern Dakotas.
High, wispy clouds are expected over the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But, Mr. Bann said, “you may be able to see some shooting stars through thin clouds.”
Clouds will be draped across much of the Southeast and the Northeast, though there could be some clearing in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Remember, the meteors could be visible all night long. If you look outside and see clouds, try again later.
Catching the spectacle will be challenging across much of the West, particularly from Washington into Northern California, where a storm system is bringing rain and snow. That system will move east overnight.
There are likely to be some pockets of clear skies at times across southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah, Mr. Bann said.
Amy Graff contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech, which manages JPL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sun had barely risen over the Pacific Ocean when a small motorboat carrying a team of Indigenous artisans and Mexican biologists dropped anchor in a rocky cove near Bahías de Huatulco.
Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, one of the craftsmen, was the first to wade to shore. With an agility belying his age, he struck out over the boulders exposed by low tide. Crouching on a slippery ledge pounded by surf, he reached inside a crevice between two rocks. There, lodged among the urchins, was a snail with a knobby gray shell the size of a walnut. The sight might not dazzle tourists who travel here to see humpback whales, but for Mr. Avendaño, 85, these drab little mollusks represent a way of life.
Marine snails in the genus Plicopurpura are sacred to the Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis, a small town in southwestern Oaxaca. Men like Mr. Avendaño have been sustainably “milking” them for radiant purple dye for at least 1,500 years. The color suffuses Mixtec textiles and spiritual beliefs. Called tixinda, it symbolizes fertility and death, as well as mythic ties between lunar cycles, women and the sea.
The future of these traditions — and the fate of the snails — are uncertain. The mollusks are subject to intense poaching pressure despite federal protections intended to protect them. Fishermen break them (and the other mollusks they eat) open and sell the meat to local restaurants. Tourists who comb the beaches pluck snails off the rocks and toss them aside.
A severe earthquake in 2020 thrust formerly submerged parts of their habitat above sea level, fatally tossing other mollusks in the snail’s food web to the air, and making once inaccessible places more available to poachers.
Decades ago, dense clusters of snails the size of doorknobs were easy to find, according to Mr. Avendaño. “Full of snails,” he said, sweeping a calloused, violet-stained hand across the coves. Now, most of the snails he finds are small, just over an inch, and yield only a few milliliters of dye.
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