California's Weather whip was a problem Dating back centuries, or more. Fire is a natural and A necessity of the diverse ecosystem of CaliforniaBut the so -called “Eye expansionUrban areas spread to Prime forest fire areas have complicated things.
Before people came to Southern California, Safford estimated that the average basin could travel 30 to 90 years without wildfire. With the addition of 20 million people and climate change, some places in Socal have been burning every 2 to 10 years.
At that speed, wooden shrubs cannot be regenerated faster enough after the fire, and the increasing fire frequency is pushing the area into a conversion from Chaparral and Oak forest to forest and oak forest. meadow And, in some cases, vacant land. When the ecosystems lose the leaves and roots deep, it helps the soil easily slide down the slope.
Recently, it has become much worse. Today, Southern California fluctuates between wet and dry modes as fast as Beyoncé's latest tour is sold out. Over the past few months, Southern California has quickly Handy into serious drought Immediately after the two most humid years in the file. That promotes the growth of spacious vegetation and then quickly dries it: A perfect formula for hot fire, destruction, uncontrollable and flowing debris.
The risk of damaging the flow after the fire is increasing as the climate changes, because we are seeing stronger storms, between drought time, which can lead to instability in areas that are burned. Before that, Mr. Faith Kearns, a forest fire expert said at Arizona State University. At the same time, the forest fires are also burning stronger, leaving the lands affected by the fire can repel water and few vegetation to keep the slope intact.
Combined, the fires of January and Eaton killed 29 people, destroyed more than 16,000 houses and created an economic impact. About 10 times larger than any previous forest fire disaster in California history. Eaton flame, near Pasadena and Palisades, near Malibu, Now rank Is the second and third forest fire in California history, after 2018 Camp That destroyed Thien Duong town.
Fire mode changing worldwideAnd when paying in the deterioration of forest health and The heavy rains, more intense, That leads to the frequency of pieces after fire is much greater in areas where they have happened in the past. In fact, A recent study It shows that at the end of the 21st century, the flow activity of debris after fire was estimated to increase in 68 percent of areas where they had occurred in the past and decreased by only 2 % of the location.
The main driver here, according to Luke McGuire, a geologist at the University of Arizona and is the main author of that study, not the increasingly heavy rainfall, not losing much rain to start a piece of fragmented flow. That is the fire is getting worse.
If climate change leads to the possibility of fire from medium to high to high, then McGuire said, which will increase the possibility of debris after fire due to regularly creating conditions to promote them.
And in California, fires have certainly become more intense in recent years.
Thirteen of the 20 largest fires in California in the past century have occurred In just seven years. Those seven years consisted of three of the dryest years and two of the most humid years in state history.
Data shows that this problem is not limited to California. The activity of Fire Fire is expected to increase on many parts of the Western United States
As the planet continues to switch to a hotter version, more prone to its own drought, Hillsides will increasingly begin to collapse into the valleys below wherever the fire occurs. It is an inexplicable consequence of the speed that the geological scale changes currently occur on human timelines.