The ridge high above Los Angeles is filled with clues. There are shattered pieces of electrical equipment, and a grove of madrone blackened by fire. Police tape is strung around one section of the sandy soil, now mixed with ash.

俯瞰洛杉矶的山脊布满了线索。这里散落着四分五裂的电气设备，还有一片被火熏黑的马德龙树林。警方在一片混有灰烬的沙质土壤上拉起了警戒线。

Investigators have zeroed in on these rocky bluffs with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean as the ignition point of the Palisades fire, the inferno that has destroyed at least 5,000 homes and businesses and killed at least eight people.

调查人员将目光锁定在这些俯瞰太平洋的岩石峭壁上，认为这里是帕利塞德大火的着火点，这场大火摧毁了至少5000座房屋和商业设施，并造成至少八人死亡。

A recent visit by New York Times reporters to the site — near the “crime scene,” as officers for the Los Angeles Police Department who were posted nearby described it — suggested a range of possibilities, some of them contradictory, for the origin of the fire.

《纽约时报》记者最近走访了这个地点——驻守在附近的洛杉矶警察局的警员称该处靠近“犯罪现场”——记者发现，大火的起因存在多种可能性，其中一些可能相互矛盾。

Charred wooden utility poles litter the ground. One plot of scorched chaparral is from a previous fire that firefighters thought they had extinguished on New Year’s Day, nearly a week before the Palisades fire broke out. And there is evidence of recent visitors to the area around Skull Rock, the eerily shaped boulder that draws hikers and teenage partyers whose discarded beer bottles remain in a heap of shattered glass.

烧焦的木制电线杆散落在地面。其中一处烧焦的灌木丛来自之前的一场大火，消防员认为他们在新年那天扑灭了那场火，那是在帕利塞德大火发生的近一周前。有证据表明，最近有游客来到这片位于骷髅石附近的地区，这个形状诡异的巨石吸引了徒步旅行者以及来这里举行派对的青少年，他们丢弃的啤酒瓶留在一堆碎玻璃中。

For now, the answer to what caused one of Los Angeles’ most destructive firestorms may be elusive even to the investigators. The yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the wind near Skull Rock is hundreds of yards across a steep slope from the zone where a New York Times analysis of satellite images and witness photographs suggests the ignition point may have been.

就目前而言，究竟是什么导致了这场洛杉矶历史上最具破坏性的火灾之一，即使是调查人员也还没有答案。在骷髅岩附近，黄色的犯罪现场胶带随风飘扬，而《纽约时报》对卫星图像和目击者照片进行分析后认定的可能起火点位于数百米开外的地方，两地之间隔着一片陡坡。

The area is desolate today. The slopes of sand and rock are colorless and moon-like, as if the fire had incinerated every trace of chlorophyll. It’s a far cry from before the fire, when hiking trails in the area were framed by reedy green plants and drought-tolerant bushes.

现在，这片区域一片荒芜。沙石坡看起来黯淡无光，就像月球一样，仿佛大火已经毁灭了所有的叶绿素。这与火灾前的景象截然不同，之前，这里的徒步小径被茂盛的绿色植物和耐旱灌木所环绕。

The fire tore through the steep hillsides on either side of the Temescal Ridge Trail, which runs north-south, roughly the same direction as the fierce winds that propelled the Palisades fire soon after it ignited on Tuesday, Jan. 7, just before 10:30 a.m.

火灾在特梅斯卡尔山脊小径两侧的陡峭山坡上肆虐，该小径南北走向，正好与推动帕利塞德大火的强风方向一致，火灾于1月7日星期二上午10:30之前爆发。

An hour earlier, Ron Giller, a lawyer who lives in The Enclave, an area of Pacific Palisades near where the fire started, hiked with a friend through a patch of ground that had caught fire New Year’s Day. Residents think errant fireworks may have set that one off.

在此一小时前，律师罗恩·吉勒和一位朋友徒步穿过了元旦那天着火的一块地。吉勒住在帕西菲克帕利塞德的英克雷地区，离那场火灾的发生地点不远。当地居民认为，那场火可能是燃放烟花引起的。

The New Year’s fire was reported just after midnight and burned eight acres before fire crews got it fully contained. Some crew members stayed to monitor for flare-ups.

据报道，新年火灾发生在午夜刚过的时候，在消防人员完全控制住火势之前，过火面积达3.2公顷。一些消防人员留在现场监视复燃情况。

骷髅岩附近的啤酒瓶和警方设置的警戒线。

The burn site from the New Year’s fire, still scarred and blackened, lays less than 100 feet from homes to the west — some of them now destroyed.

新年大火的过火地点仍然满目疮痍，留下了烧黑的痕迹，距离西面的民宅不到30米，其中一些房屋现在已经被这次大火摧毁。

On the morning the Jan. 7 fire ignited, Mr. Giller said he saw what resembled smoke or dust wafting in the area. “It had the appearance of smoke around there, but there were no flames,” he said in an interview. “It just raised a question in my mind. What is it? I was thinking, could this thing still be active? But it seemed unlikely, you know — could there still be smoke from a fire that happened six days ago? That didn’t make sense to me.”

吉勒说，在1月7日发生大火的那天上午，他看到该地区飘着类似烟雾或灰尘的东西。“"周围似乎有烟，但看不到明火，”他在接受采访时说道。“这让我心中产生了疑问。这是什么？我在想，火还没灭吗？但这似乎不太可能，你知道的——六天前发生的火灾还会有烟吗？我觉得这说不通。”

Some of the deadliest wildfires of the past century were blazes that firefighters believed they had extinguished, only to have the remnants flare up into an inferno. They include the 1991 firestorm in Oakland that killed 25 people and the 2023 wildfire on the Hawaiian Island of Maui that killed 102 people.

过去一个世纪里，一些最为惨烈的野火是消防员以为已经扑灭的大火，结果余烬重新引发大火。其中包括1991年在奥克兰造成25人死亡的火灾风暴，以及2023年在夏威夷毛伊岛造成102人死亡的野火。

Investigators concluded that the Maui blaze emerged from the smoldering remnants of a fire near a residential area several hours earlier, perhaps from burning material that was buried under dirt until the wind uncovered it again.

调查人员得出的结论是，毛伊岛的大火是几个小时前居民区附近一场大火闷烧的余烬引起的，可能是埋在泥土下的燃烧物，直到风再次把它吹出来。

Researchers have found that fires can smolder in plant roots or other organic material for days before conditions let them re-emerge.

研究人员发现，火灾可以在植物根系或其他有机物质中阴燃数天，直到出现合适条件，令它们卷土重来。

Mr. Giller and his friend, Alan Feld, were not the only ones exploring the hills of the Palisades before the fire last week. The panoramic views from the ridge often draw hikers from the neighborhood and beyond.

在上周的火灾前，吉勒和他的朋友艾伦·费尔德并不是帕利塞德山上仅有的探索者。由于从山脊上可以看到洛杉矶的全景，这里常常吸引附近以及来自其他地区的徒步旅行者。

During their walk that day, Mr. Feld said, they saw a few people sitting on Skull Rock.

费尔德说，那天他们徒步过程中，看到有几个人坐在骷髅岩上。

“And one of us even said, ‘I hope they’re not smoking or anything, with these winds,’” Mr. Feld said.

“我们当时还说来着，‘希望他们不要抽烟，风这么大，’”菲尔德说。

When the latest fire began to spread on Jan. 7, nearby residents watched in horror as it took hold in the parched grassland and then jumped down the hillside, stoked by rising winds. They called 911 and packed evacuation supplies in case they needed to flee. By then — around 10:30 a.m. — flames were towering over the landscape, according to photos from one resident. Just half an hour later, the fire had already sped down much of the hillside toward houses below.

1月7日，当新的大火开始蔓延时，附近的居民惊恐地看着大火在干枯的草地上蔓延，风势越来越大，推动着大火从山坡上蹿下。他们拨打了911报警电话，准备好疏散用品，以备撤离之需。根据一位居民拍摄的照片，那时——上午10:30左右——已经火势滔天了。不过半小时的光景，大火沿着山坡的大部分，迅速朝着下面的房屋蔓延。

骷髅岩附近，黄色的犯罪现场警戒线随风飘扬。卫星图像和目击者的照片显示，大火是从数百米之外的地方开始的。

Fire crews rushed to the scene by ground and air, and one firefighter reported to dispatchers that the blaze had started “just below the old burn scar" — from the New Year’s blaze — and might reach nearby houses within minutes.

消防人员从地面和空中迅速赶赴现场，一名消防员向调度报告，大火是从新年大火的“旧烧痕下方”开始的，并可能在几分钟内波及附近的房屋。

“It is pushing directly toward Palisades,” he said on the radio. “This thing is going to make a good run.”

“火势正直接朝着帕利塞德推进，”他在无线电中说道。“这场大火会迅速蔓延。”

At least one lawyer investigating the fire was looking at whether a downed utility line could have sparked it, since power lines run north and south along much of the Temescal Ridge Trail. California has a long history of catastrophic blazes caused by downed power lines, and early images from the other deadly fire that began last week in the Los Angeles area — the Eaton fire — show flames roaring below electrical transmission lines.

至少有一名调查火灾的律师正在调查这次火灾是否由掉落的电线引发，因为电线基本上与特梅斯卡尔山脊小径平行，向南北方向延伸。加州长期以来一直有电线掉落在地引发灾难性大火的历史，上周在洛杉矶地区开始的另一场致命火灾伊顿大火的早期图像显示，火焰在输电线路下方肆虐。

Along the trail near where the Palisades fire began, The Times found bits of power-line debris, including what appeared to be part of a lightning arrester device. But the nearest overhead power line was about a third of a mile to the north. That line, which curves down from the trail and into the neighborhood,was extensively damaged from fire, but witness photographs show it was still intact soon after the fire began.

在帕利塞德火灾起火地点附近的小径上，时报发现了一些电线残骸，包括看似避雷装置的一部分。但最近的架空电力线距离此地约500多米。这条沿着小径蜿蜒而下进入社区的电线在火灾中受到严重损坏，但目击者拍摄的照片显示，火灾开始后不久，这条线路仍然完好无损。

Investigators have made it clear that it could take time to reach firm conclusions about the cause of the fire.

调查人员明确表示，要得出关于火灾原因的确切结论可能需要时间。

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is taking the lead, took more than a year to report conclusions about the Maui fire.

对于毛伊岛火灾，牵头调查的美国酒精、烟草、火器和爆炸物管理局花费了一年多的时间才公布结论。

“We are looking at every angle,” Dominic Choi, the assistant Los Angeles police chief, said on Monday about the fires burning across the region. He said that arson had not been ruled out for any of them. In the case of the Palisades fire, he added, “there has been no definitive determination that it is arson.”

“我们正在从各个角度进行调查，”洛杉矶警察局助理局长多米尼克·崔周一谈到该地区的火灾时表示。他指出，几起火灾都无法排除有人纵火。关于帕利塞德火灾，他补充道：“目前还没有明确的结论表明这是纵火。”

For now, the entire area around the investigation site is eerily empty. The neighborhoods near the trail are evacuated and dozens of houses were leveled; — the only signs of life there are a few fire trucks and an occasional police patrol.

目前，调查现场周围的整个区域空无一人。小径附近的多个社区已被疏散，数十栋房屋被夷为平地；唯一的生命迹象是几辆消防车，以及偶尔出现的巡逻警察。

Further down the hillsides, toward the ocean, there is utter devastation. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened, their subdivisions now just a grid of ash.

沿着山坡继续往下，朝着大海的方向，只见满目疮痍。整个社区被大火夷为平地，只剩下一块块呈网格状的灰烬。

特梅斯卡尔山脊小径，一段被损坏的电线。