Terrible - looks like Hiroshima.  I read that insurance companies are canceling policies as the fires rage.

Doesn't like my ad blocker:-

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fires-california-palisades-fire-homeowners-insuranc...

Santa Ana winds are a common weather event. Not climate.
Failure to reduce fuel loads is not climate.
However, Santa Ana winds and increased fuel loads can't start fires.
To date there has been no cause listed as the ignition point in any of the fires.

It’s not really the typical time for nasty California fires. What changed that?

Southern California is experiencing its most devastating winter fires in more than four decades. Fires don’t usually blaze at this time of year, but specific ingredients have come together to defy the calendar in a fast and deadly manner.

Start with supersized Santa Ana winds whipping flames and embers at 100 mph — much faster than normal — and cross that with the return of extreme drought. Add on weather whiplash that grew tons of plants in downpours then record high temperatures that dried them out to make easy-to-burn fuel. Then there’s a plunging and unusual jet stream, and lots of power lines flapping in those powerful gusts.

Experts say that’s what is turning wildfires into a deadly urban conflagration.

Speed is the killer
“Tiny, mighty and fast” fires have blazed through America’s west in the last couple of decades as the world warms, said University of Colorado fire scientist Jennifer Balch. She published a study in the journal Science last October that looked at 60,000 fires since 2001 and found that the fastest-growing ones have more than doubled in frequency since 2001 and caused far more destruction that slower, larger blazes.

“Fires have gotten faster,” Balch said Wednesday. “The big culprit we’re suspecting is a warming climate that’s making it easier to burn fuels when conditions are just right.”

Summer fires are bigger usually, but they don’t burn nearly as fast. Winter fires “are much more destructive because they happen much more quickly” said U.S. Geological Survey fire scientist Jon Keeley.

AccuWeather estimated damage from the latest fires could reach $57 billion, with the private firm’s chief meteorologist, Jonathan Porter, saying “it may become the worst wildfire in modern California history based on the number of structures burned and economic loss.”

There’s no sure link between Santa Ana winds — gusts from the east that come down the mountains, gain speed and hit the coast — to human-caused climate change, said Daniel Swain, climate scientist for the California Institute for Water Resources.

But a condition that led to those winds is a big plunge in the temperature of the jet stream — the river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — which helped bring cold air to the eastern two-thirds of the nation, said University of California Merced climate and fire scientist John Abatzoglou. Other scientists have preliminarily linked those jet stream plunges to climate change.

Santa Ana winds are happening later and later in the year, moving more from the drier fall to the wetter winter, Keeley said. Normally, that would reduce fire threats, but this isn’t a normal time.

California infernos in January? Here’s why wildfire season keeps getting longer and more devastating

What We’re Missing About the Cause of the LA Wildfires

Climate change would have definitely contributed to it. Insurance premiums are going up due to climate change. Extreme weather events will become more frequent.

Alarmists claim climate change is killing people. However, deaths occurring from meteorological disasters have decreased by over 96% since the 1920s. What this reflects is our innovative ability to adapt and become resilient in spite of climate change. I discussed this yesterday on Pat Gray Unleashed on @BlazeTV.
https://x.com/chrismartzwx/status/1850245666804515204?s=61&t=pr9sQbfDnRXI42Hsv2j...

Many people think climate change is increasing the frequency of natural disasters but they actually declined by 10% over the last two decades, the best-available data show https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1479083279256993794?s=61&t=pr9sQbfDnRXI42Hsv2...