Santa Ana winds, those hot dry gusts that funnel through Southern California's mountain passes each autumn, created the conditions for catastrophe. The fire ignited near the intersection of Santiago Canyon Road and Silverado Canyon Road, then exploded southward from Loma Ridge toward the Orchard Hills, Northwood, and Portola Springs communities of Irvine. It continued southeast through Limestone Canyon toward Foothill Ranch and Lake Forest. The Orange County Fire Authority and Cal Fire issued mandatory evacuation orders, and California State Route 241 temporarily closed. Within two days, the community had raised over $215,000 through online crowdsourcing to help the critically burned firefighters with their medical expenses.

Southern California Edison officials reported to the California Public Utilities Commission their suspicion that a lashing wire from one of T-Mobile's telecommunication lines may have contacted one of Edison's electric lines, sparking the blaze. The exact cause remains under investigation, but Orange County later filed lawsuits against both Southern California Edison and T-Mobile. SCE was fined $2.4 million in connection with the fire. The incident highlighted the ongoing tension between California's aging infrastructure and the wildfire-prone landscape it traverses, where a single wire touching another can set thousands of acres ablaze.

By the time authorities announced 100 percent containment on November 7, 2020, the Silverado Fire had burned 13,390 acres, destroying one structure and two minor structures while damaging five others. Among the losses was a 6.1-acre restoration area along Agua Chinon Creek near Limestone Canyon Regional Park. Scientists had spent five years returning that land to its native state; the fire destroyed the seed farm facility used for the project and burned vegetation in what officials described as a checkerboard pattern of damage. Yet not all consequences were destructive, the burn scar would prove valuable just a month later.

In December 2020, the Bond Fire ignited in the same region. The fresh burn scar from the Silverado Fire helped stop the Bond Fire's spread, demonstrating the complex relationship between wildfires and the landscape they transform. But January 2021 brought another consequence: winter rains falling on burned hillsides triggered mudflows near both fire scars. Roads were blocked near the Bond Fire scar, though the Silverado burn area avoided structural damage. The cycle of fire, rain, and mud is now written into these hills, a pattern that will repeat as Southern California's fire seasons grow longer and more intense.