A week after the start of devastating fires in Los Angeles, the winds fanning the flames began again this Tuesday, January 14. The two main outbreaks, Palisades and Eaton, are still far from being completely contained by firefighters; already more than 15,000 hectares of residential areas and forests have been devastated, causing at least 24 deaths. Eric Rigolot, research engineer in the Ecology of Mediterranean Forests unit of the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), explains that such an extreme fire in the middle of winter is a first in California, and that climate change is responsible.
Is California an interesting area to observe for a French fire specialist?
Yes because this State has a particularly intense and severe fire regime, and it is a Mediterranean environment like in the south of France. The vegetation there is also more adapted to fire. California is so accustomed to fires that in the mountains bordering coastal cities, trees do not have time to grow back between two fires. Chaparral, a scrub of fairly low and thin vegetation, can quickly catch fire. There is also an urban planning context that is very vulnerable to fire.
