On Tuesday, Santa Ana winds swept out to sea over Southern California, spreading embers and then fanning the growing flames. During the night, residents received an urgent text message alert warning of potential 100 mph winds — a terrifying escalation that turned a precarious situation into a full-blown crisis. When the wind picked up, more embers flew, sparking new fires on dry, fragile ground that hadn’t seen significant rain in eight months. Los Angeles County, due to drought-like conditions, is a box waiting for a spark. Firefighters faced an uphill battle against such strong winds that the planes used to drop water and fight the fire were out of action. Officials warned in a press release Wednesday morning that “all residents of Los Angeles County are at risk.” Evacuation orders began evacuating tens of thousands of residents, with thousands more awaiting updates. As of Wednesday afternoon, three large fires have burned more than 13,000 acres with containment efforts: The Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, the Hurst Fire in Sylmar, and the Eaton Fire near Pasadena show no signs of slowing down, at the time of writing. 0 percent there, and it has become the most destructive in the history of California. Fires turn into disasters very quickly because of the dry conditions and extraordinary winds: “Any small spark, whether it’s from a lightning strike or a person or a fire will quickly, quickly escalate,” said Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist and lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “Once a fire starts in this situation, it’s very, very hard to get under control,” added Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior research associate of climate science at the non-profit news organization Climate Central. Santa Ana wind event is not common. “We see it every year around this time,” said Jason Moreland, senior meteorologist at emergency communications platform AlertMedia. This downwind, originating from the land, is caused by a dry high pressure system coming from the northwest, and a moist low pressure system from the south. “It’s like if you have a hose and fold it in half to cut off the water. “If you make a hole in the side, you have a lot of pressure to get out,” Trudeau said. , Moreland explained. Winds that are normally lowered into the lower terrain. “Every few decades, we get wind events of this magnitude,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment explains that this is only due to natural weather variability—and more research is needed to understand if it is caused by climate change. However, climate change increases the risk of early winter wildfires California. “It’s not just a particularly strong wind event, it’s also a particularly dry season in early January,” said Diffenbaugh. dry. As precipitation changes more due to climate change, the overlap between the windy and dry seasons is increasing. “We’re seeing a significant number of other days, hot, dry, windy, especially in Southern California,” says Trudeau.
