Face of future

California wildfires confirm forest fires are intensifying in a hotter world, emitting substantial amounts of greenhouse gases and reinforcing global warming

- HIMANSHU N and ROHINI KRISHNAMURTHY

THE TIMING could not have been more coincidental. On T January 20, as Donald Trump took his oath as the US president and signed one of his first executive orders withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change, southern California was fighting one of its most destructive wildfires in history, that scientists say, have been fuelled by human-driven climate change.

Starting on January 7, as many as 255 wildfires broke out in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and Ventura counties, burning more than 50,000 hectares within three weeks and resulting in 28 deaths and unprecedented destruction in the metropolitan and surrounding regions, states California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The largest fires were reported from Palisades in Santa Monica mountains, the Eaton located in Altadena area and the Hughes fire around the Castaic lake area, which borders the city of Santa Clarita, forcing evacuations of hundreds of thousands of residents. Scientists at Clima Meter, a platform that assesses and contextualises extreme weather events relative to climate change, say the fires were visible from space and detected by satellites of the US space agency NASA. California governor Gavin Newsom has remarked that the wildfires could be the costliest disaster in US history.

The western state of the US is no stranger to wildfires. But scientists term this event, occurring early in the annual fire season, as rare and extraordinary. ClimaMeter, in its analysis published on January 10, states the wildfires were fuelled by an interplay of different meteorological and hydrological conditions, whose characteristics can be ascribed to climate change. Weather conditions were 5°C warmer, 15 per cent drier and up to 20 per cent windier compared to the past when such fire events were reported.