The fire is among the largest Los Angeles County has ever faced.
After burning more than 180 square miles (460 square kilometers) of the San Gabriel Mountains in September 2020, the Bobcat fire now ranks among the largest fires on record for Los Angeles County, California. The blaze began on September 6 near Cogswell Dam, and grew steadily over the next three weeks in the midst of unusually hot, dry conditions.
“Strong winds that have shifted direction several times over the course of the fire helped it spread over such a large area,” explained Natasha Stavros, a wildfire expert with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “And the fire is burning on steep terrain with limited access to roads, which made it challenging to contain.”
Stavros sees the fingerprints of climate change in the Bobcat fire and in California's historic 2020 fire season. “Four of the five largest fires ever recorded in California were burning at the same time as the Bobcat fire,” she said. “Climate change contributes to megafires like these by heating fuels up, drying them out, and making them more flammable.”
Continue reading at NASA Earth Observatory
Image via NASA Earth Observatory
