Six months later the Mendocino Complex Fire upended that record and took out 717 square miles over three months. Record-setting California wildfires have since been the norm, with five of the top 10 occurring in 2020 alone.
The disturbing trend sparked some questions for Touma, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School for Environmental Science & Management.
“Climate scientists knew that there was a climate signal in there but we really didn’t understand the details of it,” she said of the transition to a climate more ideal for wildfires. While research has long concluded that anthropogenic activity and its products — including greenhouse gas emissions, biomass burning, industrial aerosols (a.k.a. air pollution) and land-use changes — raise the risk of extreme fire weather, the specific roles and influences of these activities was still unclear.