Los Angeles On Fire

I was planning to take a break from blogging and focus on my final exams which are less than five weeks away, but the wildfires in LA make it impossible for me to do so.

I always thought wildfires are a summer-time hazard and we are in the midst of what’s meant to be winter! Some learnings for me:

• A combination of high temperatures, dryness, and high winds give rise to conditions ripe for fires. We are not meant to have these conditions in the middle of winter, but we do now. And when we do, the smaller spark can set off a large-scale wildfire.

• In 2024, Southern California had an exceptionally hot summer. In the past, a hot summer is usually followed by fall and early winter rains. This year, the rains went missing and left the landscape parched and ready to burn. Southern California experienced two consecutive years of above-average rainfall prior to this dry spell, leading to an overgrowth of vegetation, which, when dried out, became highly flammable fuel.

Wildfires are getting worse across North America. New findings from Deep Sky Research and its Wildfire Risk Model show how wildfire risk is changing due to climate change. We need to come up with good answers and solutions very quickly or we are all in big trouble.