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@pvonhellermannn I happen to have lived in the area of the Palisades fire in Los Angeles. That neighborhood was built into the mountain, into what used to be brush and forest, with hills all around with more brush and forest, most often quite dry due to the nature of the climate there, and made dryer in late Autumn and early Winter with the Santa Ana winds from the East.

The houses that are burning were therefore built in a forest to begin with, and not any forest but one with Mediterranean plants, a number of which are "fire-responsive", i.e., depend on fire for their seeds to open and their saplings to grow without shade.
https://theodorepayne.org/post-fire-regeneration/

A "Los Angeles neighborhood" is not quite the definition I'd have given to the area. The deeper tragedy is one of encroachment into nature and failure of regulations to prevent that in the first place.