The maps indicating the rapidly expanding wildfires surrounding Los Angeles, advancing like a co-ordinated war front, are just one terrible indicator of what is facing California at present.
The infrared satellite images confirm the scale of widespread destruction that has unfolded in a matter of days. But what encapsulates the human cost of this particular catastrophe is the video footage of lost neighbourhoods; the photographs of razed homes; and audio from people brutally robbed of their homes, prized possessions and local businesses.
Other figures reveal the scale of these often uncontrollable wildfires: more than 1,000 buildings destroyed, 180,000 people subjected to evacuation orders and probably $70 billion of destruction in one of the world’s most wealthy places. Even it, with the best of fire-retardant roofs, could not protect itself adequately.
It will take some time for the science to confirm that climate change was the accelerant in this natural disaster, but the evidence is already blatantly clear.
California is well used to wildfires, so why is it different this time?
The state of California is used to severe conflagrations. But this time is different; the rapid surge of wildfires, so little time for evacuations, so many charred suburban homes in large population centres. Several major fires are enveloping LA, notably one raging in the western Pacific Palisades and another in the eastern mountains above Pasadena.
“Record-breaking wildfires are becoming more frequent, and the current California wildfires are especially alarming, occurring outside the usual fire season – May to October,” says Dr Chris Mays, an expert in wildfires, based at University College Cork.
This is just one consequence of living in a “1.5-degree world”, where global temperatures are at levels never experienced by humans before.
Mays provides a summary of where we are: “The global average temperature for 2024 was the hottest in recorded history, and the last decade includes the 10 hottest years. With the rising frequency of extreme warming-related events – wildfires, coral bleaching, algal blooms and more – we are entering a climate that drives vulnerable species toward extinction. We can and should prepare for the same (and worse) for the foreseeable future.”
What are the lessons for tackling an overheating world?
Climate action requires all of our attention in pursuing proven solutions in an effort to somehow cool the world backed by unprecedented international collaboration.
There is no silver bullet. Increasingly, it will need scaled-up supports for those who will be at the cutting edge of the crisis, whose homes and livelihoods will be lost in an instant, or the millions who inevitably will be subjected to forced migration.
In equal measure, it will need ramping up of resilience through adaptation measures for what is inevitable from warming that has already taken place since pre-industrial times.
This is a gargantuan task requiring collective action in the common good, rather than the pursuit of narrow-minded political gain. It is a focused mindset that is almost totally absent in the US right now as it wrestles with what is likely to be its worst climate disaster so far.
The huge effort needed to contain the wildfires has been undermined by constant attacks from the sidelines, those who have used disinformation, wild claims, conspiracy theories and extremist culture war tropes.
Lack of acknowledgment of even the possibility that climate was a critical factor in igniting these catastrophic fires stands out. This is in spite of a consensus among climate scientists that they have been caused by exceptional environmental conditions including near hurricane-strength winds, a prolonged drought and unseasonably high temperatures.
Are there particular lessons for Ireland?
Exceptional wildfires erupting in multiple places is just one indicator of a future where climate tipping points are reached, when irreversible impacts are likely to unfold amid greater unpredictability. That is why the climate mantra of “every tenth of a degree of temperature reduction matters” is so often repeated.
Ireland will be less vulnerable to the wildfire threat compared to the US and southern Europe, though it will be at heightened risk during periods of prolonged drought that will be inevitable from time to time.
In our case, extreme weather events in the form of storm surges and destructive flooding are the main threats. Separate to this are the possible impacts from a collapse of the Amoc, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, that gives us benign living conditions.
Its collapse due in the main from climate change, strange as it seems, would led to a much harsher climate for those living in northwestern Europe.
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