Autumn precipitation: the competition with Santa Ana winds in determining fire outcomes in southern California
Daniel R. Cayan A * , Laurel L. DeHaan A , Alexander Gershunov A , Janin Guzman-Morales B , Jon E. Keeley C D , Joshua Mumford A and Alexandra D. Syphard E
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093, USA.
B Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
C U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Sequoia-Kings Canyon Field Station, Three Rivers, CA 93271, USA.
D Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
E Conservation Biology Institute, 136 SW Washington Ave., Suite 202, Corvallis, OR 97333, USA.
* Correspondence to: dcayan@ucsd.edu
International Journal of Wildland Fire 31(11) 1056-1067 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22065
Submitted: 4 May 2022 Accepted: 25 September 2022 Published: 25 October 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Background: California’s South Coast has experienced peak burned area in autumn. Following typically dry, warm summers, precipitation events and Santa Ana winds (SAWs) each occur with increasing frequency from autumn to winter and may affect fire outcomes.
Aims: We investigate historical records to understand how these counteracting influences have affected fires.
Methods: We defined autumn precipitation onset as the first 3 days when precipitation ≥8.5 mm, and assessed how onset timing and SAWs were associated with frequency of ≥100 ha fires and area burned during 1948–2018.
Key results: Timing of autumn precipitation onset had negligible trend but varied considerably from year to year. A total of 90% of area burned in autumn through winter occurred from fires started before onset. Early onset autumns experienced considerably fewer fires and area burned than late onset autumns. SAWs were involved in many of the large fires before onset and nearly all of the lesser number after onset.
Conclusions: Risk of large fires is reduced after autumn precipitation onset, but may resurge during SAWs, which provide high risk weather required to generate a large fire.
Implications: During autumn before onset, and particularly during late onset autumns, high levels of preparation and vigilance are needed to avoid great fire impacts.
Keywords: autumn, climate, climate change, fire, precipitation, Santa Ana winds, Southern California, weather.
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