UCLA’s Climate & Wildfire Research Initiative (CWRI) Launches New Research and Policy Working Group on Urban Water Supply-Wildfire Dynamics, led by UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) in partnership with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources’ (UCANR) California Institute for Water Resources

A new study from UCLA experts breaks down the misconceptions around the limitations vegetation management could have played in mitigating the destructiveness of the January 2025 LA fires. 

Director of UCLA's California Center for Sustainable Communities Stephanie Pincetl writes, "It is time to unleash creative imagination about how we create a livable future for the 10 million people in LA county." 

Read more about her thoughts on reimagining how we build and why.

UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES) and UCLA's Sustainable LA Grand Challenge (SLAGC) presents a webinar called: "Expert Insights on the Causes, Impacts and Aftermath of the L.A. Wildfires."

Featuring an informative panel of wildfire, water quality, air quality and climate science faculty experts: 

• Alex Hall, a climate science expert and faculty director of UCLA's Sustainable LA Grand Challenge
• Greg Pierce, a water quality expert and senior director of UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
• Yifang Zhu, an air quality expert, associate director of UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center for Clean Air, and professor of Environmental Health Sciences with UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
• Moderated by: Nurit Katz, UCLA Chief Sustainability Officer

Detailed gathering of site-specific data and analysis using slope stability models to identify and treat affected critical slopes—where a failure could result in a threat to communities, transportation systems, or the environment—will be essential to reduce the risk of a catastrophic event and help with the recovery efforts. 

Read about UCLA researchers' efforts.

UCLA researchers breakdown the role climate change played in the January 2025 LA fires.