The month of January isn’t typically when to expect wildfires in California. Historically, wildfire season occurs between June and September, when the hills and brush scattered around the state are dry and more susceptible to going up in uncontrollable flames. The dryness of these conditions usually depends on how much rainfall the state receives during previous winters, among other factors. But the wildfires ablaze in Los Angeles right now, whose total destruction remains to be seen, show all bets are off when it comes to what defines wildfire season.

At the time of writing this, officials were responding to at least four fires in the Los Angeles region — the Auto, Eaton, Hurst and Palisades fires, which have spread to a combined 38,000 acres and counting. The death toll is at least 24 people.

“We now have a year-round fire season,” FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said on ABC News. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also recently made a similar comment. “This time of year traditionally has not been fire season but now, we disabuse any notion that there is a season, it’s year-round in the state of California,” he said on social media.

And it’s not just California experiencing out-of-season wildfires. In early July 2021, the Oregon Bootleg wildfire was considered seasonally abnormal, taking place slightly earlier than a traditional wildfire season. Canada has also seen its share of year-round wildfires. Researchers from the World Resources Institute calculated in 2023 that forest fires are burning nearly twice as much tree coverage as they were 20 years ago. In other words, they are getting worse around the world and there are more of them happening.

Craig Clements, a professor and director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San José State University, told Salon he agrees fire season is “year-round” now, but it’s a little more complicated and depends on the year.

Read the full article about the end of wildfire season by Nicole Karlis at Salon.