Climate anxiety turns to rage in the aftermath of the 2025 LA County urban wildfires

In January of 2025, urban wildfires in Los Angeles County burned more than 50,000 acres, killed at least 31 people, displaced more than 200,000 residents and destroyed more than 16,000 buildings — with property and capital losses estimated at $131 billion. 

One year later, out of the folks in a position to rebuild, many are still only in the planning or beginning stages. According to reporting by USA Today, 70% of the residents affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires remain displaced as they battle with their insurance companies. 

Beau Jay is a graduate student of environmental studies at Western who studies how ecological emotions emerge during natural disasters. For their master’s thesis, they are focusing on the emotional impact of the Eaton and Palisades fires. 

Measuring the emotional toll taken by the fires is a complex undertaking. And while the federal government continues to withhold disaster assistance funds, and insurance payouts are at a stalemate in many cases, money and numbers can only tell us so much.

To get at one angle of the cost of these fires, Jay is researching the emotional impact of animal casualties. Jay started with this question: How does the loss of animals — including livestock, companion animals and wildlife — impact people emotionally? 

Jay began their study by sending out 3,750 hand-addressed surveys to people affected by the fires to try to answer that question. They gathered data through the geospatial data center for LA County and randomized all the addresses that were within the perimeter of the fires.

“A lot of the responses to those surveys have been quite devastating — it’s very emotional work,” said Jay. 

Based on other recent studies, Jay said they expected respondents to express feelings of having been ill-prepared or wishing they could have done more to help evacuate neighbors and animals. So, many of the questions in Jay’s surveys are geared toward grief, loss, depression and guilt. But there's been an unexpected trend in the responses. 

“People are extremely angry at the mismanagement of these fires — the emergency response, the lack of evacuation warnings and the lack of protections for their animals,” said Jay. “With other fires, we’ve seen an outpouring of appreciation for first responders, but not in this case.”

Through follow-up interviews with survivors, Jay is uncovering a pervasive feeling of intense anger, or what Jay refers to as “eco rage.” 

Jay said this level of rage is a shift.

Firefighters said flames driven by hurricane-force winds interfered with aerial surveillance in the January 2025 LA County wildfires. But there’s a sense among survivors that these fires could have been better mitigated, and it’s unclear where to place the blame. 

The study of ecological emotions is relatively new. Jay said researchers have only seriously started looking at it within the last five to 10 years. 

“It’s all really complex. I definitely picked a difficult subject, but I enjoy it,” Jay said. 

Jay earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Western, where they focused on climate anxiety under Associate Professor of Sociology Cameron Whitley. Jay said Whitley’s goal for their students is to produce something publishable, so Jay and Whitley collaborated with faculty from Michigan State University and University of Colorado at Boulder on a paper titled "Unrecognized Mass Casualty Events: Exploring How News Coverage Minimizes Nonhuman Animal Death in Urban Wildfires." The paper was published last month in Anthrozoös and is about media coverage of animal casualties during the 2021 Marshall Wildfire in Colorado.

“I think there were 900 animals that passed away in that fire. We were looking at media coverage of lost animal lives, and there was next to nothing. So the goal of that paper was to encourage news sources to cover that aspect in these stories,” said Jay. 

Working on that paper prepared Jay for their master’s research on the January 2025 LA County wildfires. They have received nearly $25,000 in grants for this current project — a little over $18,000 from NYU’s Animal Studies Program at their Center for Environmental and Animal Protection and $5,000 from University of Colorado at Boulder’s Natural Hazards Center’s Quick Response Research Award program. Jay is also a recipient of the Research and Creative Opportunities Grant through WWU's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

Jay is now sending another 4,250 surveys (for a total of 8,000) to people affected by the LA County fires. Their goal is to complete 75 qualitative interviews with respondents.

Animal evacuation during the Palisades and Eaton fires was largely a grassroots effort. The equine industry, in particular, is a sizable contributor to California’s tourism industry and economy. So folks with equine experience and equipment organized via group chats and social media to rescue horses around Altadena and Pacific Palisades. People with double-decker ruminant trailers coordinated with one another to evacuate as many sheep, goats and pigs as possible. 

Not all residents of affected areas were near their homes when the evacuation alerts came through, and many had to leave their animals behind. The Pasadena and San Diego Humane Societies, ASPCA, the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control and other animal welfare organizations worked to help animals behind fire lines who were trapped inside homes and other enclosures. Despite these efforts, there was significant loss of animal life.

Jay said the stories written in the survey responses have ranged from depressing to devastating. 

“Not only does this kind of tragedy impact people as far as the grief of losing an animal — but especially as far as livestock goes, it’s community based. It’s a loss of community, it’s a loss of gardens, a loss of connections,” said Jay. 

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Rebekah Paci-Green said Jay’s research will help us understand evacuation decisions better, especially how people’s choices are shaped by their connection to animals. 

“Emergency managers have noted that people often will not evacuate without their pets. But evacuating with pets and other animals can be challenging if evacuation shelters and motels won't allow them. Terrifyingly, some people are choosing to remain behind in dangerous and rapidly evolving fires, hurricanes, floods and other hazards in order to stay with their beloved animals. Those are the kinds of decisions disaster victims should not have to make,” said Paci-Green.

Jay said they have loved grad school and the close collaboration with faculty at Western.

“When you’re a grad student, the faculty treat you as an equal, and they want to tackle this problem with you in such a different way than when you’re an undergrad. The mentorship has been incredible. My work with Cam, studying GIS with Aquila Flower and Natalie Furness, and learning about disaster studies with Rebekah Paci-Green — it's been wonderful,” said Jay. “Grad school has been such a positive experience.”

In a strange twist, this past holiday season brought so much rain to California that the whole state is drought free for the first time in 25 years, and a lush green is starting to push through the backdrop of the devastating January 2025 fires.

LA County has a population of 10 million, and though the 200,000 or so people affected by the January 2025 wildfires represents significant human, animal, property and economic loss, most of the affected residents are watching the world move on without them. 

Jay’s broad goal is to inform better policies and protections for the people and animals affected by wildfires. Part of their research is looking at ways to improve the Pet Act and thinking about protections for wildlife as well. 

“In Altadena, there’s a lot of unincorporated counties with urban farms that need better protections. These farms are an extremely important part of not only their livelihood but their community,” Jay said.

Paci-Green said that following Hurricane Katrina, federal law mandated that emergency plans consider pets, but it’s unclear how well that is working.  

“Our hope is this research will make future emergency evacuation plans more relevant, doable and supportive for those evacuating with animals,” said Paci-Green.

Learn more about Western’s master’s program in environmental studies here. 

Allie Spikes covers the WWU Graduate School and Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies for University Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at spikesa@wwu.edu.