"Firestorm" | Reviewed by William Winkler

January 7, 2025, marked the outbreak of several of the costliest wildfires in the history of the United States. The Palisades fire and the Eaton fire, both in Los Angeles County, burned for 24 days before being confined on January 31. Fueled by underbrush starved for moisture (the area had seen no measurable rainfall for eight months) and Santa Ana winds of epic velocities, the two fires combined to kill more than 30 people and destroy more than 16,000 buildings.

NBC TV journalist Jacob Soboroff, based in Los Angeles, was assigned to cover the fires despite his prior request to be spared the coverage of such events. The fact that he grew up in the Palisades area made it impossible for him to decline the assignment.

Soboroff’s recent book, “Firestorm,” details his days in the field observing firefighters and other emergency responders as well as local, regional, and national authorities as they reacted to the unfolding (and unprecedented) catastrophe.

Although those readers unfamiliar with the Los Angeles area may find Soboroff’s descriptions of the locales affected by the conflagrations bewildering, his characterization and descriptions put a personalized face on each of the neighborhoods.

A reader may never have set foot in the Palisades or Altadena, but each of these places will seem familiar as the narrative progresses. The inclusion of rudimentary maps in the first pages of the book can help non-native readers place the fires, their location and magnitude, in perspective.

Soboroff interviewed multiple firefighters who were the front line of defense during the three weeks of the fires. Their stories, woven into the narrative of the fires’ progress and ultimate control, paint a grim picture of the human toll the fires levied, both on the professionals on the ground and the inhabitants whose lives were affected and, in some cases, lost.

In the last chapters Soboroff spells out the difficulties that made battling the fires the daunting challenge that it was. And he examines ways in which regional and national authorities might act to mitigate the disastrous effects of similar calamities.

Buy the book.