Photo: https://phys.org/news/2025-01-national-nonpartisan-los-angeles-future.html
Welcome back to The Sunstone Way.
We join with Southern California, the entire state and really the entire country mourning the losses suffered in the horrendous wildfires over the last week in and around northern Los Angeles. We will be sending a donation through the Sunstone Community Fund to the relief efforts, and will watch for ways to assist in the rebuilding of Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena and the rest of the communities devastated by the fires.
As I write this on Monday, more than 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires. The death toll was 24 people, with officials warning that number will rise.
Worst Ever
The largest two fires, Palisades and Eaton, were both less than 35% contained Monday afternoon. A combined 40,000 acres had burned, and nearly 100,000 people were still under evacuation orders. Experts were saying that combined it will be the worst wildfire in California history before it is brought under control – and the entire area was under a red flag warning with wind gusts up to 70 mph expected through Wednesday.
The human suffering is incalculable. People have lost lifetimes of memories, and some were uninsured – starting over for them is a gargantuan task.
I’ve been told the fires were driven by 100 mph Santa Ana winds – that’s hurricane strength and previously unheard of in this area. Embers flew for miles, causing fires to grow rapidly and randomly.
Creating a Disaster
There are several reasons why these fires are so severe. Recent weather patterns first provided two years of more rain than normal, causing brush and other vegetation to grow abundantly. Then for the last six to eight months it has been abnormally dry, allowing all that fire fuel to become tinder dry.
Californians’ penchant for building homes in or near forests and on hillsides put more homes than normal in the paths of these fires. Many of those homes were built before the devastation of such wildfires was contemplated.
As of this writing, no direct cause for starting the fires had been determined. The most common ignitor of wildfires is lightning – there were no storms that night. Second most common – utility lines. People want their electricity and their natural gas, both direct factors in many fires.
A New Way
There’s a better way to get the electricity we need, and technology is available now. You don’t need miles of high voltage electrical lines if you’re part of a microgrid delivering energy onsite.
Microgrids use a clean energy source – solar, wind, even geothermal – to generate electricity, then store it and distribute it to nearby homes and businesses. Microgrids like this make it possible to live near or in nature without the overhead power lines that so easily ignite fires during extreme wind events. And you get to work with your neighbors, too!
These fires are yet another clarion call for a clean energy strategy to slow or stop the warming of our planet, which causes these extreme weather events. Sunstone is pursuing such an approach, and I urge others to consider doing the same.
Our climate here in Southern California has been pretty idyllic – not too hot in summer, not too cold in winter. But global warming threatens to disrupt that pattern. More and more destructive wildfires and sea level rise are symptoms of the disease we must find ways to cure.
In the Future
We want to do everything we can to help the victims of these wildfires. In particular, it’s important to stay with them long after the flames have gone, while they rebuild their lives.
Most of the new homes will be built as all-electric, because the state legislature has banned natural gas appliances in new homes beginning in 2026. That electricity is going to have to come from somewhere.
Adding and growing clean energy solutions to the energy grid makes sense, and can be scaled up quickly to help these rebuilt neighborhoods. While there still may be power plants generating electricity by burning natural gas in the short term, the clean energy sector can and should increase the amount of electricity available, now and in the future.
Let’s help our neighbors recover from this tragedy, and look to the future. That’s the Sunstone Way.
And remember, always be a Sunstone!
John Keisler
CEO & Managing Partner
Sunstone Management, Inc.
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©Sunstone Management, Inc. 2025