Wildfire weather has become more frequent in the Western United States over the past five decades, with some of the largest jumps in California, according to a new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on climate change. The report looks at three key weather conditions — heat, dryness and wind — that, when combined, load the dice for wildfires to spread quickly and grow large, said Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior research associate with Climate Central. … The report serves as a good reminder that the Western U.S. has become warmer and drier in ways that tend to promote more large wildfires, said Park Williams, climate scientist and professor in the UCLA Department of Geography, who was not involved in the analysis.

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