‘We dread summers’: dangerous ‘fire weather’ days are on the rise in northern California

The Dixie fire grew most explosively on nine of 10 such days, finds analysis of weather station and fire data

On late summer and autumn days, when the hot, howling winds sting the skin and chap the lips, Holly Fisher starts to feel a bit unsettled. So do many of her neighbors in the town of Paradise, a name that evokes bitter irony in northern California.

It feels eerie," she said. Three years ago, this arid, blustery weather portended the Camp fire. It consumed the town, killed more than 80 people, and burned down Fisher's home. As the region reeled in the aftermath, the same potent convergence of weather conditions - known as fire weather" - helped fuel the North Complex fire in 2019, and the Caldor and Dixie fires this year.