The “Pyrocene” is upon us. At least, that is the theory which was first introduced by fire historian Stephen Pyne in a 2015 essay.United States Forest Service ecologist Gavin Jones described the Pyrocene in a 2023 interview with The Explorers Journal as the current era in which humans experience greater fire activity than before. The key driver – human activity.The wildfires currently ripping through suburbs of Los Angeles in California and beyond have claimed at least 11 lives so far as well as more than 30,000 acres of land and more than 10,000 buildings. They are the most destructive wildfires in the history of the state.As wildfires become more frequent each year around the world, concern from climate scientists that climate change is making them worse is mounting.Intense and seemingly unstoppable wildfires in several Los Angeles neighbourhoods in California, US, which began on Tuesday, have killed at least 10 people and destroyed 10,000 houses and structures. About 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares) of land have been burned, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).AdvertisementCalifornia’s Governor Gavin Newsom said in a video he posted on X on Wednesday that there is no longer a fire “season” in California. “It’s year-round in the state of California.”Pyne, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences, agrees. He told Al Jazeera that we now “have to live with a fire age, the fire-informed equivalent to an ice age”.Has climate change contributed to the California wildfires?It is very likely, according to many experts.The planet is warming to record-breaking levels, scientists warn. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed on Friday that 2024 was the first full year where global temperatures exceeded pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius.C3S said the climate crisis is pushing the world to temperatures never before experienced by modern humans.Climate change has contributed to an increase in the frequency, season length and burned area of wildfires, according to a report by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).As a result of all this, says Pyne, global warming is “adding energy to the system, magnifying the wet and dry spells, lengthening the fire season, ramping up all the [already powerful] elements that contribute to California’s firescape”.How does climate change trigger wildfires specifically?The exact causes of the California fires, which began on Tuesday in the Palisades area of Los Angeles, are unknown and under investigation.“But they are human,” Pyne says. “They might be directly related to people [malice, carelessness] or indirectly [say, through faulty power lines]. For the moment the origins are unclear.”AdvertisementExperts say, however, that it is likely that a combination of environmental factors created the optimal conditions for the calendar-defiant fires to spread as rapidl
Dom. Gen 12th, 2025
