"Climate change is making naturally occurring events more intense and more frequent, research shows."
Climate change has likely contributed to the unprecedented wildfires that are raging through Southern California.
Five wildfires -- the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Woodley and Lidia fires -- were burning through Ventura and Los Angeles counties on Wednesday. At least five people have been killed and several others injured by the disaster, according to officials.
MORE: A perfect storm of weather and climate conditions led to the severity of the California fires
While wildfires are a natural and necessary part of Earth's cycle, climate change and other more direct human influences have increased their likelihood. Climate change is making naturally occurring events more intense and more frequent, research shows.
In recent decades, wildfires in the western U.S. have become larger, more intense and more destructive due to a combination of factors, such as rapid urbanization and human-amplified climate change that "has produced warmer and drier conditions with prolonged droughts that stress forest vegetation facilitating pest outbreaks and tree death, leading to the accumulation of surface fuel," according to the federal government's Fifth National Climate Assessment, a breakdown of the latest in climate science coming from 14 different federal agencies, published in November 2023...
