Daniel Swain in UCLA Newsroom: Risk of massive wildfires continues to grow in California

Doubling of extreme fire weather days highlights the need to reduce emissions and take other preventive measures, researchers say. A study by UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain and colleagues projects that the risk of severe wildfires will continue to mount with increased global warming. “In the autumn, there is now this confluence of very dry vegetation and potentially very strong, dry winds,” Swain said. “When a fire comes along it is going to behave differently than it would, for example, if those plants were very moist or it had recently rained.”