LA fires: is climate to blame?
A climate disaster?
As I write this, Los Angeles is bracing itself for stronger winds as fires continue to burn. Urgent preparations are being made – the expected winds may fan the flames as firefighters continue to battle three blazes.
The LA fires have devastated thirty square miles, killed 12 people and stretched firefighting resources to the limit. Of course, people will ask why it happened, and for some the answer is simple – climate change.
The Guardian, typically, takes an apocalyptic view considering the fires ‘climate disasters compounded’. It says that the conditions for the January LA firestorm have not existed before now, adding the recent weather conditions in the area are unusual for this time of year.
But you don’t need climate change to explain the Los Angeles fires. The county ranks at the top of Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index for fire. LA county is no stranger to fires. It is naturally grassland, and fire is a natural part of the regions ecosystem.
It is not unusual for Los Angeles to be very dry in December and January. Records show that since 1944, over the last three weeks of December and the first of January, some 13 years have received little or no rain, including 2024–25. In fact, armed with this information, meteorologists predicted the fire threats a week before they started. The National Weather Service issued an alert warning of a particularly dangerous situation.
An important factor is that for the past two years Los Angeles was particularly wet. This has stimulated biomass growth, which, when subjected to arid conditions, results in a lot of material available to combust.
When it comes to such fires, most ignition sources are human-related. Indeed, almost all the Santa Ana wind fires are caused by humans. Campfires are often to blame, and increasingly powerline failures. But add to the equation poor land management, inadequate building regulations and firefighting shortcomings, especially access to water, combined with strong, dry offshore winds and burgeoning La Nina conditions you can get the LA firestorm out of circumstances that are not unusual.
While the debate continues, and LA residents count the cost, some parts of the media perform the usual climate shuffle, giving the present explanation from something that might happen later. The Guardian goes on to say that in the future Santa Ana wind events could become less frequent but more intense in the winter months due to climate change. Well, that’s the future, which is not in the minds of current LA residents as they count the cost.