California has a problem with overly aggressive fire suppression over the last 100 years creating a buildup of extra-flammable burnable areas. Literally, you need to let a certain amount of burning go on, continuously over time, so that the burnable areas aren't over-fueled tinderboxes that get very hot, very fast.
Part of this is using controlled burns to mitigate the buildup, another thing that's been under-resourced in California.
I had a discussion at a B and B with a guy who flew F-16s in the USAF, then U2s once they were going to promote him out of flying. He'd just left the service and had retrained to fly Grumman water bombers for Calfire. The problem as I've described it is apparently well-known in the wildfire fighting community in Californa.
That's true in general but not really applicable to these fires. It's mostly chaparral that's burning, and most of the dry brush has built up over only a few years — not 100. We had two years of heavy rains that caused a lot of brush growth, and then this season it all dried out.
Controlled burns in that terrain are impractical because there are too many structures nearby and a controlled burn can turn into an uncontrolled burn in minutes. A more realistic approach would be expanding defensible space and culling non-native flora.
Interesting. Wikipedia [1] also says that these biomes are supposed to have canopy fires rather than smaller burns. I'm a bit skeptical (seems awefully convenient), but it looks like the 500 year climate record supports this idea [2].
Part of this is using controlled burns to mitigate the buildup, another thing that's been under-resourced in California.
I had a discussion at a B and B with a guy who flew F-16s in the USAF, then U2s once they were going to promote him out of flying. He'd just left the service and had retrained to fly Grumman water bombers for Calfire. The problem as I've described it is apparently well-known in the wildfire fighting community in Californa.