It is time for the country to begin to have the words "Climate Crisis" in their daily dialogue.

There was only one place (click here) in the state of California where a fire could be ignited with this intensity and that is exactly what occurred. Everything that could have been done was being done and everything that is being done is being done.

...Conversely, drought worsened for southern California...

...A dry start (click here) to the winter and using 90-day SPI (click here) and soil moisture, moderate drought (D1) was expanded across southern California. The NDMC short-term blend, 90-day SPI, and many 28-day average streamflows below the 10th percentile supported the addition of severe drought (D2) to portions of southern California. The Santa Ana winds during early January are likely to exacerbate the worsening drought conditions. Consistent with the NDMC short-term blend along with 30 to 120-day SPI, D2 was expanded for portions of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Based on water year to date (WYTD: October 1, 2024 to January 6, 2025) precipitation averaging above normal and snow water equivalent (SWE) above the 80th percentile, a 1-category improvement was made to southwestern Idaho, eastern to central Oregon, eastern Washington and a small part of northwestern Montana. This 1-category improvement is also supported by NDMC drought blends and SPIs at various time scales. As of January 7, SWE was above-normal (period of record: 1991-2020) across the southern Cascades along with eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho. SWE was highly variable for the Sierra Nevada Mountains and below-normal across the Four Corners Region.

California was doing all it could (click here) and farther ahead of any other state of the country with a population of nearly 39 million Americans. It is the climate and the severe drought of southern California that sparked an inferno with winds that would not relent.