It is third in a series about health risks following the Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Instead, 2025’s so-called offseason ignited January 7, when the Santa Ana winds came howling through Los Angeles, bringing gusts upwards of 100 miles per hour, after more than eight months without meaningful rainfall. By nightfall, thousands of homes in Los Angeles’ swanky Pacific Palisades neighborhood and the Altadena community north of the city were gone. They asked Spada which instruments to bring, what measurements to take, where to set up downwind and when he would be there. Spada, a trim, energetic man with a close-trimmed beard and reddish hair, is a project scientist at UC Davis’ Air Quality Research Center.