Wildfires Burning More Overnight, Increasingly Threatening SoCal
Climate change is increasing the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires in Southern California and enabling fires to burn longer by increasing their ability to burn in 'unfavorable' conditions, two new studies show. Research published Wednesday in Nature found increasingly hot and dry conditions increase fires' ability to keep burning overnight, when firefighters used to be able to rely on cooler nighttime temperatures lowering fire intensity. Climate change, caused mainly by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, is worsening droughts, and making hot nights (and days) hotter and more frequent, both of which supercharge wildfires. A separate paper published today in Communications Earth & Environment found climate change could double the number of "large fire days" in the region by 2100 without immediate emissions cuts. “It’s a roll of the dice," Glen MacDonald, a professor of geography at UCLA and the lead author of the study, concurred, " but we are loading them with more and more days where you have this high probability of a fire and that spark has a greater opportunity to occur when it’s really going to cause damage.”
(Night fires: Washington Post $, CNN; Southern California: The Guardian; Climate Signals background: Wildfires, Drought, Extreme heat and heatwaves)
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