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A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire ( in Australia ), desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, prairie fire, vegetation fire, or ...
From January 7 to 31, 2025, a series of 8 destructive wildfires affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County in California, United States. [5] The fires were exacerbated by drought conditions, low humidity, a buildup of vegetation from the previous winter, and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, which in some places reached 100 miles per hour (160 km/h; 45 m/s).
A study conducted in 2019 found that from 1972 to 2018, California saw a fivefold increase in the area burned in any given year, and an eightfold increase in the area burned by summer fires. [21] Another study estimated that the area burned between 1984 and 2015 could have been half of what it was without human-caused climate change. [26]
While East Coast earthquakes are less common than their counterparts on the West Coast, they tend to be felt over a wide area, the USGS said, as evidenced by a April 2024 quake centered outside ...
Devastating fires in Lahaina, Hawaii and Paradise, California share a crucial root cause with the LA blazes. It's a clue to our fire future.
Lightning is the most common natural cause of wildfires. In higher elevations lightning sometimes strikes dry vegetation, which sparks a fire that can easily become uncontrollable, particularly ...
Climate change in California has lengthened the fire season and made it more extreme from the middle of the 20th century. [4] [5]Since the early 2010s, wildfires in California have grown more dangerous because of the accumulation of wood fuel in forests, higher population, and aging and often poorly maintained electricity transmission and distribution lines, particularly in areas serviced by ...
It showed that the most common causes of wildfires from 1992 to 2020 were mishaps related to vehicles and other equipment. “More than 95% of these are human-ignited fires,” he wrote in an email.