Weather Whiplash: Understanding California’s Fire Risks Amid Climate Change

over a year since the devastating LA wildfires.

Thankfully Southern California appears to be escaping a record breaking March heat wave without any further fires.

But climate scientists are concerned about what could come next.

They're linking the 2025 wildfires, January's record breaking rains, and March's record heat to climate change, and fears of a return to drought conditions.

Now back on the rise, which is leading to concerns for wildfires once again.

Well, joining us to break all of this down is Jeff Gitterman, Managing Director at Gitterman Asset Management.

Jeff, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Well, of course there are plenty of headlines to sift through when it comes to extreme weather.

So tell us about this weather whiplash that we're seeing.

So one of the worst things that can happen in California is what we're seeing right now, where you have a really wet winter, which we've had an extremely wet winter.

It causes a lot of that underbrush and those small plants around the trees to grow very rapidly.

And with a lot of water they grow quickly, they grow tall, they fill in the underbrush, but those are young plants that don't have deep roots yet and then all of a sudden you turn around and you get another drought that's peak fire risk in California.

It happened before the 20 and the 23 cycles.

It is definitely the worst scenario possible because you get all this.

Tinder basically for fire.

As soon as it dries out over the summer months, that risk of fire explodes beyond if we had had a drier winter where all of that young plants don't flourish as much and you don't add as much tinder.

So really risky situation.

We're already seeing this play out in Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado.

We're seeing fires all over Nebraska. dealing with one of the worst fires that they've ever had out there, so it's troubling for sure.

And I do want to ask you about the El Nino wildcard here, wildcard here, because emergency responders do have to prepare for the potentials out there.

So how would you actually mitigate some of this risk and what role does El Nino play?

I mean it definitely adds fuel to the fire because it creates warmer cycles, more wind in those typical cycles.

What you do to deal with it is we really would need teams of people going out and clearing that underbrush to make sure that we don't have as much tinder available for the fire.

We used to do clear fire where we would literally clear all of that brush out.

Those were stopped years ago.

It might be time to rethink that.

They were doing that for hundreds of years before we had these terrible fire cycles.

They were doing clear cutting and clear brush and having fires just to clear that underbrush out.

We need to go back to some of the traditional ways that we looked at dealing with these problems and start reenacting them.

And for viewers out there who might be saying, of course droughts, wildfire, extreme rain is a normal part of the cycle, but what is different now and what are some of the risks?

What's different now is the size of this heat dome.

So we've had heat domes before.

They typically cover an area of the state where you get extreme heat.

What we're dealing with right now in March is heat records broken across multiple states all the way from Southern California up into Canada and All the way out to Arizona and New Mexico, so we're dealing with the largest heat dome that we've seen really, and we're breaking March heat records that are also breaking April heat records.

So if you think about it, we're a month early breaking April heat records in March.

That is not a good sign of what's to come at all and the size and scope of it.

If you're having wildfires in one area, you could bring teams in from other.

If you're having a heat dome across multiple states like we're dealing with, you can't afford to send those fire crews out to help in other areas because you're one spark away from having fires in your area.

So it's troubling.

It's what we've been talking about for the past couple of years that the weather gets warmer, the air sucks more moisture out of the plants quicker, creates more tinder faster, and then we get bigger rainstorms and bigger.

And finally, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about urban heat islands, especially since you and I are here in New York City.

So what is the impact on public health?

It adds 20 to 30 degrees in inner cities.

We don't have shade in inner cities.

It's all concrete.

They're literally between suburbs and cities.

There's up to 20 to 30 degree temperature differential within a mile of those two locations.

So it's not the temperature, it's just.

All that concrete and all that blacktop absorbs tons of heat, makes it unlivable for people.

I mean, I don't know if you saw the warnings on the news, but they were telling people don't have hot meals, don't drink coffee, because any risk of overheating was exacerbating what the temperatures were already doing.

So we need to rethink our infrastructure.

We need more inner city parks.

We need to paint roofs white in these apartment buildings that all have blacktop roofs.

There's a lot that we can.

We can create much more reflective roads, so there is definitely the technology out there.

What we're at a crossroads with is do we spend it before it costs money to fix it, and people have a hard time doing that, but it costs a lot less to fix it before there's a problem than it does after there's a problem.

Well, Jeff, a lot of food for thought here.

So as always, thank you so much for weighing in and thank you so much for sharing your perspective.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.