U.S. experts on Sunday warned against more wildfires in Southern California because of continuing dry weather.
There is little doubt that Southern California will burn again, and perhaps sooner than later, said the experts.
The area has been hit by a persistent drought. Los Angeles, for example, has not had more than an inch of rain in any month since April 2006. That's 18 months of exceptionally dry conditions.
"We've had an extremely long drought," said Jon Keeley, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.
And small amounts of rain will do little to help. "Less than an inch in a month is close to zero," Patzert said. "All it does is give you a little injection of fuel."
The grasses that quickly sprout after even a light rain become fuel for fires, especially when the Santa Ana winds are around, which they are for a large chunk of the year, experts said.
"In some ways, these fires, unless there's more rain, are pretty inevitable," Patzert said. "Part of our history is that we're as dry as a bone, and we put human activity in these high-risk areas. It's an amazing thing there's not more fires."
Most of the region's fires are human-related, said Kelly Redmond, interim director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, California.
"They're most likely to start where people live," Redmond said." People are doing all kinds of stuff, whether it's smart stuff or not-so-smart stuff. They're doing people things. And you have people infrastructure, like power lines."
Dozens of fires have haunted Southern California this year. In October, more than 10 wildfires raged through the area, killing about 14 people, destroying thousands of homes and blackening 200,000 hectares of land.
Source: Xinhua
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