The devastating fires that swept through parts of Los Angeles, U.S., in January raged for more than three weeks before being fully contained. In that time, they burned through more than 20,200 hectares (50,000 acres) of forests and homes, killing at least 29 people. A recent report from World Weather Attribution (WWA) finds that climate change made the hot, dry conditions that fueled the deadly fires roughly 35% more likely.
Furthermore, these fire-prone conditions will become an additional 35% more likely if warming reaches 2.6° Celsius (4.68° Fahrenheit], which is expected by 2100, the report authors write.
“Without a faster transition away from planet-heating fossil fuels, California will continue to get hotter, drier, and more flammable,” Clair Barnes, a WWA researcher at the Imperial College London, said in a statement.
The Los Angeles dry season historically runs from May to October, but the researchers report that low rainfall from October to December is now 2.4 times more likely compared with that in the preindustrial era, after which anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to fuel climate change.
As a result of the low rainfall, fire-prone conditions have extended by roughly 23 days, which puts drought in the same time frame as the region’s infamous Santa Ana winds. The winds can start in September but are most intense in December and January.
The Santa Ana winds that breathed life into the January L.A. fires were nearly 160 kph (100 mph) and caused the fire to spread quickly. Roughly 10,000 structures burned, creating health hazards for people and wildlife alike.
“While Southern California is no stranger to high impact wildfires, the impact of these fires and the timing of these fires in the core of what should be the wet season differentiate this event as an extreme outlier,” John Abatzoglou, professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced, said in a statement.
The study, conducted by 32 researchers from seven countries, combined weather data and climate models to form its conclusions.
“The study has some uncertainty in terms of the exact percentages of increased likelihood but the methodology is robust,” Stefan Doerr, a professor at Swansea University, U.K., and an editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, told Mongabay by email. Doerr was not involved with the study.
The findings are “not surprising given that previous studies have already shown that the length and severity of the fire weather seasons have increased significantly globally since the 1980’s due to climate change,” Doerr added.
“In 2025, the choices facing world leaders remain the same — to drill and continue to burn oil, gas and coal and experience ever more dangerous weather, or transition to renewable energy for a safer and fairer world,” Friederike Otto, the WWA report’s co-lead and senior lecturer in climate science at the Imperial College London, said in a press release.
Banner image of fire crews battling the Palisades fire in Southern California, courtesy of CAL FIRE.
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