Scorching, deadly fires that tore through Los Angeles apace last week were whipped up by furious winds that had barrelled in from the desert.
The blazes are still raging. And this week the so-called Santa Ana or “Devil” winds are back. This is what it could mean.
What are the Santa Ana winds?
Santa Ana winds are hot, dry winds that blow in from the northeast.
They pick up speed as they hit the mountains around LA, and send humidity levels plunging, further upping the fire risk.
Although investigators are still confirming the spark of each fire, these winds have largely been blamed for last week turning the wildfires into infernos that razed entire neighbourhoods to the ground.
Adding fuel to the fire has been the impacts of climate change, which is making the weather hotter and drier, creating tinderbox conditions that allow fires to balloon.
Los Angeles has had no significant rainfall in over eight months, even during what is now supposed to be the wetter season.
How the Santa Ana winds fuelled last week
In the early hours of last Tuesday, weather chiefs issued a rare “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning as they braced for violent winds.
It was “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather”, the National Weather Service (NWS) Los Angeles said.
How prescient that warning was.
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How fast did the wildfires spread?
At 10.30am PST the first fire started in Palisades – the spark not yet determined. Over the next few days, wind speeds reached 99mph in places, five further fires broke out, together burning more than 40,000 acres and…
