Australian fires

[Dan Druff]

The electrical thing is easy to explain. The equipment is getting old and is not being maintained well.

Regarding the climate, I have spent many decades in southern CA. I know what the climate is and was like. It hasn't changed. Not enough to cause a massive difference in fires.

You can't even blame drought because the 2019 fires followed a winter/spring which saw above average precipitation.

Well I live in the Sierras at 6000’ and it’s obvious that the climate is changing. The pine trees aren’t doing that well (due to drought and beetle infestation) and the oak trees are flourishing. That’s a sign the planet is warming up.

2019 was the coldest winter/spring in all of California and Nevada in many years. I'm talking about consistent cold from January-March. The summer also wasn't particularly hot, as we didn't have much of the usual heatwave which tends to show up in late August or early Sept.

I reject that California has been significantly warmer in recent years and causing fires or issues with the trees.

The drought is the bigger issue. For several consecutive years in the 2010s, California had drought. However, the 2016-2017 season was way above average, and after a semi-dry 2017-2018, the 2018-2019 season was again well above average. So it looks more like we just ran bad for some years in a row, and it's not a result of climate change. Either way, we'll need more data in order to see the truth here. But we had big droughts in other decades, as well. California, especially southern, just has big variance when it comes to precipitation totals, mainly because it almost all falls in a 4-month period.