An exceptional combination of environmental factors has contributed this week to the perfect storm of historically unprecedented fires in Southern California. The near-hurricane winds and drought that have fueled the fires in the Los Angeles area herald a new era of complex events in which various historical weather conditionss occur simultaneously at atypical times of the year, generating situations that exceed our ability to react.
Joe Biden promised on Wednesday that the Department of Defense would strengthen the capacity of state and local governments to fight fires, an unusual measure that highlights the extent to which these fast-spreading fires are overloading our ability to react.
The flames have burned more than 14,500 hectares. The region’s major electricity companies had to cut power to one in three homes and businesses in Los Angeles in a coordinated attempt to reduce the risk of new fires due to downed power lines.
With hundreds of homes destroyed, among other structures, and damage so widespread that municipal water reserves have been depleted, the Palisades fire is already the most destructive in Los Angeles history. In the Pacific Palisades area, wealthy residents had to flee on foot after leaving their cars on streets blocked by traffic. In Pasadena, the rapid advance of the fire forced evacuations in areas as far away as the Tournament of Roses Parade.
Early estimates of the economic impact of the wildfires are in the tens of billions of dollars. The fire may still be the most damaging in US history, surpassing the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California.
Firefighters have faced ferocious winds with drought and atmospheric conditions extremely atypical for Southern California at any time of the year. Even more so in January, a month in the middle of the rainy season. This fire is occurring weeks after (or before) the dates on which the large wildfires in California have taken place so far.
The next few days are going to test us. The persistence of strong, dry winds until early next week keeps open the possibility of new fires of similar magnitude. In the worst case scenario, the uncontrolled Palisades and Eaton fires will continue to spread throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with new outbreaks growing rapidly and simultaneously until they are out of control, invading other neighborhoods and limiting evacuation routes. faster than firefighters can react. In these conditions it is practically impossible to contain a fire caused by the wind.
A new era of climate disasters
These fires mark a before and after. Not just for the people of Los Angeles, but as a representation of a new era of complex and combined climate disasters. The conditions for a firestorm in Los Angeles in January had never existed before in history. Now they happen.
The short explanation is that the greenhouse gases that humans continue to emit are fueling the climate crisis and increasing the frequency of large fires in California. In a warmer atmosphere, warmer air evaporates more water and can intensify a drought at a faster rate. Melting Arctic ice changes the behavior of the jet stream and makes the spread of large wind-driven fires in California more likely. According to recent studies, the climate crisis could be behind the lower frequency and higher intensity of winds in Santa Ana during the winter.
The more complex answer is that these fires are an especially clear demonstration of a warning that climate scientists have been making for decades: combined climate disasters that occur simultaneously produce much more damage than they do separately. As the climate crisis worsens, the interdependent atmospheric, oceanic and ecological systems on which human civilization has been formed will experience compounding and shifting changes that are difficult to predict. An idea that was the common thread of the Biden Administration in its 2023 national climate assessment.
It’s been 16 months since Los Angeles first encountered a tropical storm. Since then, the city has experienced the hottest summer in its history and at the beginning of this rainy season, the driest on record, it has only received 2% of normal rainfall. The weeds left behind by the deluge from the 2023 tropical storm are still there, adding fuel to the fires.
That alone would have been enough for a disaster. But this week’s historic wind storm in Santa Ana was added to it, which broke speed records for any time of the year and throughout the region (early on Wednesday, gusts reached up to 160 kilometers per hour). The combination of all these factors has created extreme conditions conducive to forest fires. They would have strained state resources even in the midst of the summer fire season. Much worse in January, with many firefighters on leave and equipment in warehouses.
This is how turning points occur.
This scenario is repeating all over the worldand not just with fires. During the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons, a total of seven major hurricanes hit Louisiana and the entire central Gulf Coast, sometimes just weeks apart. Florida had a similar set of hurricanes last year. The area devastated by Canada’s wildfires in 2023 more than doubled the previous record, sending plumes of smoke across the continent and creating public health problems for tens of millions of people downwind.
In the coming weeks and months, as the rainy season resumes and the next atmospheric river arrives, Los Angeles will be at elevated risk for catastrophic flooding on the scorched lands left behind by the Palisades and Eaton fires, once again exacerbating the disaster for local residents.
Translation of Francisco de Zárate
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