Fresh Air Investigating The Great Los Angeles Fires
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Jan 5, 2026 
Jacob Soboroff, a senior political correspondent for MSNOW and author of 'Firestorm,' shares his profound experiences covering the devastating 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, revealing the failures of infrastructure and policy that exacerbated the disaster. He discusses the emotional impact of witnessing his childhood home burn, and the physiological sensations of reporting amid chaos. Literary critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Ben Markovits's novel 'The Rest of Our Lives,' blending insights on narrative with themes of loss and recovery.
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Reporting From Your Own Hometown
- Jacob Soboroff watched his childhood neighborhood burn while reporting live and later learned his family home had been destroyed.
- He drove through familiar streets as landmarks carbonized and reconnected with people he hadn't heard from in decades.
No Single Cause Explains The Catastrophe
- There is no single proximate cause of the fires; they resulted from a confluence of factors including climate, infrastructure, and management failures.
- Pointing to one culprit misses the systemic nature that makes future reoccurrence likely.
Fire Year Stretches Firefighting Capacity
- Winds and year-round fire risk made traditional firefighting resources insufficient and grounded air support at the peak of the event.
- Large-scale simultaneous conflagrations can exhaust manpower and equipment even with maximum deployment.
