Wildfires in California show no signs of slowing down

Tuesday, Santa Analytical winds drifted out to sea from Southern California, scattering embers and fueling the growing wildfire. Overnight, residents received emergency text alerts warning of potential 100 mph winds — a terrifying escalation that turned a dangerous situation into a full-blown crisis. As the winds blew, more embers flew, sparking new fires in dry, fragile scrubland that hadn’t seen significant rain in more than eight months.

With drought-like conditions, Los Angeles County was a hotbed waiting for a spark. Firefighters battled winds so strong that planes used to drop water and flame retardants crashed. Officials warned in a press release Wednesday morning that “all residents of Los Angeles County are at risk.” Evacuation orders have since displaced tens of thousands of residents, with thousands more awaiting renewal. As of Tuesday evening, three large fires had consumed more than 13,000 acres: the Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, the Hurst Fire in Sylmar and the Eaton Fire near Pasadena showed no signs of slowing down as of this writing. It contained 0 percent and has already become the most destructive in the history of California.

The fires quickly turned into a disaster because of the unusually dry and windy conditions: “Any small spark, whether it’s a lightning strike, a human or a campfire, will quickly escalate,” said Jennifer Marlon, a researcher and lecturer at Yale University’s School of Environment and Climate Change. Yale Program in Communication. “Once a fire starts under these conditions, it’s very, very difficult to get it under control,” adds Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior climate science fellow at the nonprofit news organization Climate Central.

Santa Ana wind events are not uncommon. “We see it every year around this time,” said Jason Moreland, chief meteorologist at emergency communications platform AlertMedia. These inland downwelling winds are caused by a dry high pressure system from the northwest and a low, moist pressure system from the south. “You have a hose and you fold it in half to cut off the water. If you punch a hole in the side, you have a lot of pressure to get out,” explains Trudeau. “That’s basically what happens with air.”

However, Moreland explains that these winds are stronger than usual due to the jet stream being lowered near the Baja Peninsula in northwestern Mexico. Winds that usually descend at higher altitudes reach lower areas. “Once in many decades we get wind events of this magnitude,” he says.

Although this wind event may seem extreme, Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior research fellow at Stanford University Woods Environmental Instituteexplained that this may simply be due to natural weather variability, and more research is needed to know if it is caused by climate change.

However, if the winds are not unseasonal, climate change increases the risk Late or early season wildfires in California. “It’s not just a high wind event, but it’s a particularly dry season here in early January,” says Diffenbaugh. Southern California’s wet season, which runs from October to April, saw record low precipitation following one of the driest rains on record. As is the precipitation more variable due to climate changethe overlap between the windy season and the dry season is increasing. “We’re seeing more, hot, dry, windy days, especially in Southern California,” Trudeau said.