One of the things that “debates” like the one we are seeing rage about fire management and the like about the fire in the Los Angeles area is the utter lack of scale and understanding context.
For example: the population of LA County is currently estimated to be 9,633,345 (2023 Census Bureau estimate). For basic comparative purposes, I would note, therefore, if LA County was its own state, it would be eleventh in population, just edging out New Jersey.
To put it another way: 39 states have populations smaller than LA County’s.
As such, massive disasters in such a situation are likely to affect a lot of people and also be quite costly.
It also means that when making comparisons to other places (or even other times), such facts need to be taken into account.
And just pointing out the number of people doesn’t tell us the population density.
LA County takes up 4,753 square miles, which is just slightly smaller than Connecticut at 5,543 square miles. Connecticut’s population is 3,675,069 (roughly a third of LA County).
The county’s population density of the county is 2,430/sq mi. Connecticut’s is 747/sq mi.
The state with the highest population density is New Jersey at 1,263/sq mi. The District of Columbia’s is 11,131/sq mi.
As a matter of basic social science, and of general policy and political analysis, understanding these basic facts is kind of important.
I would note that I am using the whole county as the unit of analysis but would note that some parts of the county are much more densely populated than others. As per the map at the top of the post, the further north you go in the county, the fewer people there are. But, also, the issue is not just the city of Los Angeles, as the fires in question are mainly not in LA proper (indeed, I don’t think any of the major ones are at the moment).
None of this has much of anything specific to do with what can or cannot be done about future fires (or that should have been done in advance of the current ones). But these are rather essential data needed to understand the context in which these events are taking place.
