Los Angeles Palisades Wildfire, January 2025: Black Carbon, Weather, and Air Quality

This visualization leverages NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model to examine the Palisades Fire, a highly destructive wildfire that began in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County on January 7, 2025. Spanning from January 2nd through January 14th, this visualization shows black carbon dispersal from the fire, overlaid with regional meteorological conditions affecting fire behavior and regional air quality indicators for surrounding communities. The visualization demonstrates how advanced Earth system modeling can track the complex interactions between wildfire events and their environmental impacts, providing critical insights into how fires affect both atmospheric conditions and community health across the greater Los Angeles region.

Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS)
NASA’s GEOS is a complex modeling and data assimilation system that creates global analyses of the Earth System. GEOS integrates satellite observations, in situ measurements, and approximately one million weather observations collected hourly to inform its models. GEOS data products are created by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).
The GEOS visualization provided in this webpage incorporates data from the following products:

• GEOS-FP 2KM Replay: Black carbon dispersal from the fire.
• GEOS-FP: Regional weather analysis for 2-meter Temperature (T2m), 10-meter Wind Speed (W10m), Relative Humidity (RH), Soil Moisture (SM), and regional air quality analysis for Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) concentrations.
• GEOS-CF: Regional air quality concentrations for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), and Ozone (O3).