Fire crews continue to battle a wildfire in the wealthy coastal town of Malibu, California, which began on December 9. The so-called Franklin Fire has charred more than 4,000 acres and affected about 22,000 people.
Officials said it would take a “number of days” to put out the blaze, which was 20% contained on Thursday.
Although the cause of the fire is yet to be determined, experts suggest that the Franklin Fire has been destructive because of two reasons, the “Santa Ana” winds and climate change.
What are the ‘Santa Ana’ winds?
Santa Ana winds blow when high pressure builds over the Great Basin — the area between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada (a mountain range in the Western United States) — and the pressure is low over California’s coast. The difference in pressure triggers the movement of powerful winds from the Basin’s inland deserts, east and north of Southern California, over the mountains toward the Pacific Ocean.
As the wind comes down the mountains, it compresses and heats up. The wind’s humidity also drops, sometimes to less than 20% or even less than 10%. The extremely low moisture turns vegetation dry, making it ready to burn. This process helped fuel the flames in Malibu.
Santa Ana winds usually occur from October to January. “Winter weather patterns allow high pressure to build near the surface of the Great Basin, which then interacts with low-pressure air over the Pacific,” Rose Schoenfeld, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard, California, told Blomberg.
What is the role of climate change?
Santa Ana-driven wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape. However, experts say the wildfire season in California has lengthened in recent years. For instance, a 2021 study, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, found that the state’s annual burn season has lengthened in the past two decades and that the yearly peak has shifted from August to July.
The wildfires have also become more intense in the past few years. A 2023 study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), revealed that 10 of the largest California wildfires have occurred in the last 20 years — five of which occurred in 2020 alone.
This has happened primarily because of climate change. Rise in global temperatures over the years has led to warmer springs and summers, and early spring snow melts. Such conditions cumulatively cause longer and more intense dry seasons, putting more moisture stress on vegetation. As a result, forests have become more vulnerable to fires.
The situation will only get worse as humans continue to emit greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. According to a recent United Nations report, current climate policies will result in global warming of more than 3 degree Celsius by the end of the century, more than twice the 1.5 degree threshold.
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