AccuWeather insight: Southern Californian vs. Australian Wildland Fires
Monitoring stressors in California
Kyle Langan, 2025
Stressor: Dry winds
Scenario: A storm develops offshore from Southern California, paired with high pressure centered over the West. This can bring high-velocity winds, which may pose fire risk even in the most urban areas of L.A. [1]
Stressor: Gusty conditions paired with low humidity levels
Santa Ana Season starts in October, on average, and goes through January, sometimes getting into the start of February. [2] Even in winter time, CA can remain dry, windy, and sometimes hot. On their SoundCloud podcast, Paul Pastelok and Joe Lundberg provide continuous guidance for concern of winds lining up for an offshore presence. [3]
Storms off the Pacific Coast can determine magnitude and timing of winds according to Pastelok. [4] AccuWeather uses Local StormMax™ for wind events, set at 100 mph, for example.
Combustible material
Scenario: California sees record-breaking snow water contents. This precipitation delays the onset of wildfire season, and increases the total amount of combustible material, fuel load. The precipitation leads to intense growth, then is followed by severe drought. What does this set up for?
Lightning can naturally ignite fires (ex: August 2020 California lightning siege. Santa Ana Winds can then fan flames of blazes and cause them to evolve rapidly into massive wildfires. However, nearly 90% of fires are caused by humans in some way (ex: electricity power lines), and due to this fact, predicting wildfire tolls and acreage is very difficult. [8]
The January 2025 conditions in California resembled the conditions leading up to the 1980 South Australian bushfires: Late February 1980 saw a virtually rainless summer, parlayed with a very wet spring in 1979 prior to the drought conditions. Then 3 years later, February 16th, 1983 was an absolute disaster in South Australia — half a million acres or 2,080 km2 burned, killing 75 people. [9]
Areas that need strategic preparation
The interior Northwest and the northern Rockies face wildfire risk: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California and northern Nevada may confront exposures because fires are always reasonably expected in times like June or the first half of July. However, this “region’s peak of wildfire activity” is usually July into early September.” [10] Many of these areas likely already have scheduled “prescribed burns,” or intentional power outages, especially in conditions of severe drought and extreme weather like Australia can experience.
New Jersey forests.
The Florida Peninsula can experience brush fires in the spring with any drier-than-average conditions. [11]
Alaska has led the country in wildfire activity in past years, with nearly twice the amount of land in Delaware burned in 2022 from wildfires. However, a fire season is more defined on the impact to the public and not by the acreage burned,” Pastelok says. [12]
“There is no better example of this sentiment than the 2018 wildfire season when the Camp Fire raged in California. The blaze scorched 153,336 acres and burned the city of Paradise, California, to the ground, killing 85 people to become the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in 100 years. It also destroyed more than 18,000 structures and forced 52,000 people from their homes.” [13]
References
Danielle, M. (2025, January 13). Death toll climbs to 24 and thousands of structures destroyed in California wildfires. Palisades Fire in California rages out of control. https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/palisades-fire-in-california-rages-out-of-control/1731028
Glenny, A. (2025, January 13). Intense Santa Ana winds to resume early this week around Los Angeles. https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-forecasts/intense-santa-ana-winds-to-resume-early-this-week-around-los-angeles/1732922
[1-3]
[2, 6-8]
Lada, B. (2023, April 12). AccuWeather’s 2023 US wildfire forecast. Retrieved from https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-forecasts/accuweathers-2023-us-wildfire-forecast
[9]
“About Ash Wednesday”. Country Fire Authority Victoria, Australia. Archived from the original on 23 March 2008.
Bureau of Meteorology. “Climate Education: Ash Wednesday, February 1983”. Australian Government. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013.
[10-11]
Term of the week: Fuel load. interfire.org. Retrieved from https://www.interfire.org/