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Used to great effect during BLM riots. Caused billions in property damage. Arson works, in that sense.
Why do all these outbreaks of mass arson seem to occur exactly when there is historically extreme fire weather conditions?
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10279345
Are they that competent to plan exactly when the conditions on the fire triangle are perfect and then go out to set fires together?
Same thing with the Canadian fires in 2023. Apparently there was this historically unique epidemic of arsonists setting fires all through the boreal forest even deep into the north country exactly when the climate conditions were extraordinarily prone to wildfire.
There were clear arsons during BLM riots. Buildings burning in major cities that have nothing to do with wildfires in other parts of the US.
There's a video of a burning building in an urban center and an urban youth cutting a fire hose to prevent it from being put out. Crystal clear unambiguous arson.
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Yes? Because that's exactly when all the news is going "be careful this weekend, because one match could send the entire state up in flames! Anyone could just go out there with a can of gasoline and choose from this extensive list of high risk areas to incinerate! Smokey the bear says: only you have the sweet sweet power of life or death over thousands!"
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Maybe arsons in less-flammable times don't result in newsworthy conflagrations. Nobody cares about the fires that remain small and burn themselves out quickly. During fire-prone times, any arson is liable to become a big deal.
I agree, but this negates what is often used as a point to discredit the claim that climate change plays some role in recent extreme wildfires.
I often point to figure D from the paper I linked, showing that there’s an incredibly tight relationship between annual area burned and atmospheric aridity (measured as vapor pressure deficit).
And in fact, we know very well that increasing continental vapor pressure deficit extremes is a key aspect of climate change.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51305-w
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JD025855
I’ve seen a lot of the back and forth rhetoric about the conditions in California right now. One side, it’s climate change! The other, it’s homeless camps who are lighting fires!
All I know is that Southern California is currently experiencing their second lowest winter (wet season) rainfall totals in 150 years of record keeping and then the Santa Ana winds arrived.
https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/
That drought may or may not be related to climate change, but these type of scenarios almost always have an angle where the climate is playing a primary role, for one reason or another.
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Small potatoes compared to what’s possible. It’s like bombing a plane vs flying it into a skyscraper. Imagine you were a patient, clever, and well-prepared terrorist in LA yesterday, how much damage do you think you would be able to cause?
Agreed. This was sporadic and disorganized. Merely riots going a bit further than usual.
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