How climate change has fed California's record-setting year for wildfires

Experts say climate change has been a key factor behind wildfires that broke records across the world in 2020.

Climate change has increased California’s risk for wildfires, producing warmer, drier conditions, causing more frequent droughts and prolonging the state’s fire season..

This year’s Bobcat Fire was also one of the largest wildfires in L.A. County’s history, burning over 100,000 acres of land in the Angeles National Forest.

L.A. County also set a new temperature record of 121 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We have to be able to curtail the greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jonathan Parfrey, the executive director of Climate Resolve, an organization that connects communities, organizations and policymakers to address a global problem with local action. “But at the same time we have to learn how to adapt.”

Wildfires have threatened biodiversity and put species in danger of extinction. The fires have also increased greenhouse gases, contributing to the severity of climate change itself.

“The climate crisis is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced,” said Professor David Klein, director of CSUN’s Climate Science Program. “Biologists tell us that we’re in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, the last one occurred 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs.”

According to CNN, utilities cut power to thousands of Southern California homes amid high wildfire danger on Thanksgiving Day.

“In order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius,” Klein said, “we have to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions 45% by the year 2030 and bring it down to zero net emissions by mid century by 2050.”

Some regions of California recently reintroduced control burns as a method of wildfire prevention.

Controlled burns are any type of fires that intentionally set off to meet specific land management objectives such as reducing flammable fuels, restoring ecosystem health, recycling nutrients or preparing an area for new trees or vegetation.

Marti Witter, a fire ecologist for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said controlled burns are very effective, especially if officials use controlled burns in enough areas over a long period of time.

“One great example is Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park where they’ve been doing prescribed burning for decades now,” said Witter.

In California, wildfires ravaged about 4 million acres this year, making 2020 one of the worst fire seasons in the state’s history.

But California isn’t alone.

According to the BBC, wildfires have burned more than 13,000 square kilometers of the world’s largest tropical rainforest in Brazil.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature reported that this year’s fire season was the worst in Australia.

Chris Dicus, who leads the Association for Fire Ecology, said there are many ways to manage wildfires in California. He says the use of prescribed fire is incredibly effective in many ecosystems across California but not in certain places.

“We use our entire tool belt to go into and manage the forest,” Dicus said, “because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to managing our wildlands.”

This show was reported by the following team: