In 2018, the worst year of California wildfires on record, fires destroyed over 24,000 homes and buildings in the state.
Additionally, as wildfires rapidly spread, citizens can be forced to evacuate and in the worst situations, can lose their properties and homes to the fires. Wildfires release toxic smoke into the air, leaving dangerous air quality conditions, ash, and debris in their wake. Residents of Los Angeles County have already experienced the severe impacts of these wildfires. Over the past 50 years, summertime forest fires in the state have increased in size by approximately 800%, and 11.2 million residents in California currently live in areas with elevated risk for wildfires. Of the 20 largest fires to ever occur in California, two of them occurred in the last 10 years in Los Angeles County: the Thomas Fire in 2017 and the Station Fire in 2009. Warmer average temperatures, dryer seasons, and changing seasonal time frames have increased the number of wildfires in Los Angeles County, as well as in the intensity of the flames. Moreover, fire suppression over the last several decades has only added to the dangerous levels of tinder that has been available, and will continue to be available, to burn.
However, because the summer season has grown longer and hotter, and fall and winter rainfalls have decreased, flammable tinder has accumulated to high levels. This moisture dried out slowly through the summer season until it could be replenished the following fall. With a longer and wetter winter season, Los Angeles County’s vegetation would soak up moisture which could help prevent summertime wildfires. Los Angeles County’s fire season has already lengthened by approximately 75 days, and will likely increase in the future as well. California’s dry and hot summers have always made the state more vulnerable to wildfires however, rising temperatures and lower levels of precipitation have made the fire seasons longer and more severe. Warming temperatures also speed up evaporation, thus drying out the soil and parching the trees and vegetation.ĭrier and hotter summers have increased Los Angeles County’s drought risk, and by 2050 California’s risk of summertime drought is expected to almost triple. Higher annual temperatures lead to earlier snowpack melting, meaning that the winter season is shorter, there is less moisture in the soil during the dry season, and that the dry season is even longer. In addition to lower levels of rainfall, rising temperatures are reinforcing dryer and hotter summers in Los Angeles County.