An extremely warm summer and fall. An unusually dry winter. Hillsides covered with bone-dry vegetation. And strong Santa Ana winds. In the mix of conditions that have contributed to the most destructive fires in L.A. history, scientists say one significant ingredient is human-caused climate change. A group of UCLA climate scientists said in an analysis this week that if you break down the reasons behind the extreme dryness of vegetation in Southern California when the fires started, global warming likely contributed roughly one-fourth of the dryness, one of the factors that fueled the fires’ explosive spread. Extreme heat in the summer and fall desiccated shrubs and grasses on hillsides, they said, enabling those fuels to burn more intensely once ignited. The scientists said without the higher temperatures climate change is bringing, the fires still would have been extreme, but they would have been “somewhat smaller and less intense.”

Related articles:

• UC Riverside News: Blog: A climate scientist’s take on the LA fires
• University of California news release: Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally
• Politico PRO: ‘Weather whiplash’ threatens California with more misery
• LAist: What LA did right before the fires — and why it wasn’t enough