LA fires should be 'wake up' for sport - experts

The Los Angeles wildfires should serve as a warning to major sports events organisers that they must adapt to climate change, experts say.

A series of wind-driven fires have torn through swathes of the city in California since Tuesday, leading to at least 24 deaths, the destruction of thousands of buildings and costs already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn).

LA will host the next edition of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028, as well as matches during the 2026 Fifa World Cup and this summer's revamped Club World Cup.

"We need to take a long, hard look at the cost and benefits of each of these [major sports events]," Iris Stewart-Frey, professor in environmental science at Santa Clara University in California, told BBC Sport.

"In no place are we immune from the things we have done to the environment. In many ways it is a wake-up call."

Firefighters have been unable to quell multiple blazes across the region around LA, which are spreading because of very strong winds and an increase in dry vegetation, acting as tinder.

A phenomenon called a climate 'whiplash' – rapid shifts between very wet and very dry conditions – has made California particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.

After a decade-long soil-damaging drought, California was beset by heavy rain and storms in 2022 and 2023, which scientists say was a result of climate change.

The intense rainfall created new vegetation which, combined with high temperatures and strong winds, has created the conditions for one of the worst fires in the region's history.

"It shows that even areas that are as magical, innovative and as resourced as Los Angeles are not immune from climate change," added Stewart-Frey.

"These fires highlight that wherever we are we have to be planning for weather and climate events that we haven't seen in human history."

The LA Rams' NFL play-off game against the Minnesota Vikings has been moved to Arizona, while NBA side the LA Lakers and NHL franchise the LA Kings have postponed fixtures.

The climate in California has undergone huge change since LA last hosted the Olympics in 1984 and the World Cup final was held in nearby Pasadena in 1994.

Over three decades later, extreme weather events are much more common and conditions are more volatile and unpredictable.

A new study says that climate change has boosted these whiplash conditions globally by 31-66% since the middle of the 20th century, while California now has 78 more days per year when conditions are ripe for fires than 50 years ago.

"For quite some time now researchers and scholars have been sounding some alarms about the suitability and feasibility of sport, and large sporting events like the Olympics Games and World Cup around the world," Timothy Kellison, associate professor in sport management at Florida State University, told BBC Sport.

"Climate-related sea level rises being one of those, [as well as] extreme heat, extreme cold.

"Wildfires are really a wildcard, because we are trying to predict something that is largely unpredictable in terms of size and scope, and yet there is much research that indicates they will continue to grow, the seasons will become longer and the devastation will unfortunately increase."

While major sporting events can be impacted by extreme weather events, they can also contribute to their frequency.

Fifa reported the 2022 World Cup in Qatar contributed 3.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere, and a Swiss regulator later found the organisation made false statements about environmental promises.

"Any of these activities adds to carbon emissions," said Stewart-Frey.

"There are still a few years before these large events are being held in Los Angeles, so there is an opportunity for making some adjustments."

Both the International Olympic Committee and Fifa – organisers of the Olympics and World Cup respectively – now employ senior staff members responsible for sustainability at strategic level, as do many other governing bodies and international federations across sport.

Those employees are responsible for ensuring their organisations take the environment into account when making decisions, and for mitigating any damage caused by the events they organise.

"If you were to ask those folks who are heads of sustainability at these different organisations, they would probably give you a company line saying that there really is a strong vested interest [in the environment]," said Kellison.

"Unfortunately those leaders tend not to be at the top. They are just one voice where lots of other factors – economics, marketing, sponsorship – are all taken into account.

"So while sustainability might have one voice in that room, until it is captured across the entire leadership at the top of these organisations, it's going to continue to be an uphill battle."

An IOC spokesperson said the organisation is in "full solidarity with the citizens of Los Angeles and full of admiration for the tireless work of the firefighters and the security forces."

They added: "Currently the full focus must be on the fight against the fires and the protection of the people and property."

BBC Sport has contacted Fifa for comment.

Data published by the European Copernicus service on Friday shows the year 2024 was an average of 1.6C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures, a new record. Last week United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as "climate breakdown".

With warming reaching new heights, extreme weather events increasing, and most major countries failing to reduce their emissions, adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly important. Sport will have to do the same.

"What we are seeing now is that sports organisations are thinking less about 'how do we stop climate change?' and more about 'how do we adapt to it?'," said Kellison.

"So rescheduling, changing the calendar of competitions or fixtures, even fortifying sports facilities themselves or thinking about where the best place is to site them.

"Any sort of positive impact that we're making won't be felt for maybe generations and so dealing with what's in front of us right now for sports organisations is really important. Expecting the unexpected is the best case scenario at this point."

The devotion and dedication some fans have to sport means that fixtures and major events being compromised has the potential to make clear just how devastatingly real the danger posed by climate change truly is.

"Sometimes unfortunately it takes events like this for people to really wrap their brain around climate change," added Kellison.

"It's really when people feel it and when they are living it that they start to understand it. You can tell them that their lives or their children's lives will be affected and that doesn't really turn the needle, but talking about their favourite NFL team having to play somewhere else might inspire some interest."

Sport has been at the apex of plenty of huge social changes in modern history, and now may have to be again.

"Coming together to be in friendly competition, in goodwill, and understanding each other, is a real benefit from these kinds of events and in many ways we need more of that," said Stewart-Frey.

"We just have to figure out how we do that without destroying the environment at the same time."