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“摧毁”洛杉矶的帕利塞德大火是怎么烧起来的？
This Is Where the Palisades Fire Started
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。
