Researchers from the Climate and Wildfire Research Initiative at UCLA have offered their perspectives on the flames raging in the Los Angeles region.
They stressed that even in the absence of climate change, the flames would have probably still been catastrophic, even if they have suggested that climate change contributed to the fires’ intensity.
The researchers estimate that about 25% of the acute fuel moisture deficiency that existed at the time the flames started may have been caused by climate change.
The unusually dry vegetation conditions that greatly raise the probability and severity of wildfires are referred to as this deficiency.
The experts clarified that the intense intensity of the fires was caused by a number of important variables. There was a significant accumulation of vegetation between 2022 and 2024, which gave the fires plenty of fuel.
A particularly hot summer in 2024 severely dried out the plants, adding to this fuel buildup. The area also saw an unusual lack of winter rains, which normally fall in November and December, leaving the area drier than usual.
Beginning on January 7, 2025, an almost unprecedented Santa Ana wind event made these conditions worse. Strong, dry winds were a major factor in the wildfires’ quick spread, spreading the flames over wide areas and complicating firefighting efforts.
The researchers stressed the intricacy of the problem even though they acknowledged that climate change had an impact on these conditions.
They claimed that a thorough investigation and a sophisticated comprehension of the numerous contributing elements would be necessary to ascertain the exact magnitude of the effects of climate change.
They said that given the mix of environmental and natural elements already at work, the fires would have probably been severe even in the absence of the particular climate-related problems they outlined in their article.
Their results highlight the complexity of wildfire danger and the significance of comprehending the ways in which natural and man-made elements interact to affect fire intensity and behavior.
According to the researchers’ unpeer-reviewed work, “the anomalously warm summer and fall of 2024 (3rd hottest since 1895), and its drawdown effect on fuel moisture, is the clearest way in which climate change may have intensified the January 2025 wildfires.” “However, the unusually low fuel moisture at the time of the fires is also strongly linked to the lack of early wet season precipitation, a factor that has likely arisen more from the large range of natural variability of Southern California precipitation than from human-caused climate change.”
The researchers additionally stated that there are “no known natural ignition sources at this time of year in the region, so the fires were almost certainly started by human activity of some kind.”
