| In Los Angeles' chaparral-covered ecosystem, wildfires in the mountains are an annual ritual. But when those fires leaped into residential neighborhoods last week, the city suddenly found itself in survival mode. A critical question became why the largest city in California, a state that has spent years fortifying itself against wildfires, couldn't stop the fires this time. State regulations required residents in high-risk neighborhoods to create vegetation-free buffers around their homes. California had invested billions of dollars to reduce the amount of woody fuel for fires to burn. It boasted the largest firefighting force in the nation. Yet within a few days, decades-old communities and beloved landmarks were gone, and residents were left asking why. Experts said several key factors — including urban sprawl, a resistance to clearing vegetation around homes and a water system that's not designed to combat multiple major blazes at once — left L.A. exposed to disaster. As climate change fuels record heat, leaving the hillsides primed for wildfires to grow swiftly into massive conflagrations, here are the factors that led to catastrophe. | 
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