The world has watched in horror as fires continue to raze parts of Los Angeles, California. For those of us living in Australia, one of the world’s most fire-prone continents, the LA experience feels all too familiar.
A “perfect storm” of several factors resulted in the catastrophic fires now burning in Southern California: long-term climate change combined with extreme weather conditions, all playing out in one of the most densely populated parts of the United States.
The tragedy offers valuable lessons for other global cities in a similar climate zone to Los Angeles – including the Australian centres of Adelaide and Perth. The fires are also instructive for centres such as Sydney and Melbourne, where the climate is warming and drying.
