Climate Change Made California Fires More Likely

A bank burns during the January wildfire crisis in southern
California. Experts have concluded that climate change 
made this disaster more likely. Photo by CalFire.

Climate change made those horrific January California wildfires more likely, but the overall picture is complicated, experts who have done an analysis on the crisis have concluded. 

World Weather Attribution is an organization that does rapid response analyses of extreme weather events to determine whether climate change contributed to these events and to what extent. 

The link between the fires and climate change is complex, but it is there. 

Yale Climate Connections reported on the World Weather Attribution findings:

"The hot, dry and windy conditions that drive the fires were about 35 percent more likely and 6 percent more intense due to 1.3 degrees Celsius of global warming that has occurred since preindustrial times."

Also, "Low rainfall from October through December in the current climate is about 2.4 times more likely compared to the preindustrial climate, but this change cannot be confidently attributed to human-caused climate change"

"Fire-prone conditions because of human-caused climate change have increased by about 23 extra days each year, increasing the chance a fire will start from October through December, which coincides with the onset of peak Santa Ana wind season." 

Other findings by WWA suggest that the California dry season has increased by about 23 days since the global climate began warming to its current 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

That means there's now a greater overlap between the time Santa Ana winds typical hit and the times that those winds can create firestorms like we saw last month in California. 

WWA also noted that the atmospheric patterns that are known to strengthen Santa Ana winds has increased in the winter, which increases the risk of weather that encourages wildfire in January. However, WWA scientists say they are unsure if this atmospheric pattern trend can conclusively be tied to climate change. More study is needed on that topic. 

The bottom line: WWA concludes that climate change had an impact on the fires. Here's their precise conclusion: 

"Given all these lines of evidence we have high confidence that human-induced climate change, primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels, increased the likelihood of the devastating LA fires."

Since the likelihood of fires has apparently increased in southern California due to climate change, they'll need to build more resilience to future fires, WWA tells us. 

There is a high number of both elderly and disabled people living in the potential fire zones, so plans need to be in place to help them evacuate more quickly and easily when danger lurks. 

The fires also proved the water infrastructure in the area is inadequate. Despite the bleatings of the Trump administration and others, the reservoirs had plenty of water to fight the fires. 

But city infrastructure like water mains, hydrants and such are designed to handle routine fires, like when a single house or business burns down. The water system clearly can't hand major fires like this, as we know some hydrants ran dry from too much demand in the local systems. 

The region also needs more defensible areas, in which brush and other flammables are kept away from homes, businesses and neighborhoods. And rebuilding should use fire-resistant materials.

As bad as this tragic wildfire episode was, it'll happen again at some time in the future. Now is the time to take steps to make sure southern California - and other wildfire prone areas - take steps to minimize the danger. 

Because climate change is not going to go away.