In California’s Brutal Climate Loop, Heatwaves Raise Fire Risk
The high temperature is drying out soil and forests, ripening conditions for dangerous blazes.
Firefighters battle smoke and flames from the Ranch Fire in Azusa, California, on Aug. 14.
Photographer: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty ImagesThe current heatwave broiling Californians like no event in decades is also elevating the risk for another potential disaster in the weeks ahead: wildfires.
While heat and dry conditions have contributed to the Lake and Ranch fires burning now in Los Angeles County, fear of larger blazes looms in the weeks ahead. As a result of climate change, California sees more than twice as many fall days with “fire weather” as it did a generation ago. The current heatwave raises the odds of “wildfires later in 2020, that’s for sure,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.