Elon Musk Downplays the Role of Climate in L.A. Fires, Scientists Say

Elon Musk on Thursday inserted himself into the debate over the role climate change plays in wildfires as at least five fires scorched the Los Angeles area, charring entire neighborhoods, killing at least five people and forcing tens of thousands to flee.

“Climate change risk is real, just much slower than alarmists claim,” Mr. Musk wrote to his 211 million followers on X, the social media site he owns. He said the loss of homes was “primarily due” to “nonsensical overregulation” and “bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.”

But scientists are clear: A warming planet, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, has created the conditions for increasingly destructive wildfires, along with more damaging hurricanes and other extreme weather.

Studies have found that extreme wildfires are getting more frequent and more intense, and fires are spreading faster, too.

“Wildfires have become larger and more frequent because of climate change in the Western part of the United States,” said Michael F. Wehner, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Regarding Mr. Musk’s comments, he said, “I find the whole thing pretty alarming.”

Scientists are unable to say with certainty that any single weather event was caused by global warming. But coming off the hottest year in history, the Los Angeles area has received less rainfall since the start of the rainy season in October than almost any other year since record-keeping began in 1877.

That drought turned vegetation into ready kindling, and temperatures have been above normal, further drying out grasses and scrubs. At the same time, Santa Ana winds have been unusually ferocious, blowing as fast as 100 miles per hour.

Benjamin Hatchett, a fire meteorologist at the University of Colorado, said there have been dry starts in past years but the combination of drought and high winds is fueling more destruction.

“This is probably just a bad, unfortunate, confluence of events,” Mr. Hatchett said. “I would be very hesitant to immediately say this is climate change and I don’t think that’s the right message here.

But because of climate change, he said, “this is the kind of conditions we expect to see more of going into the future.”.

President-elect Donald J. Trump, Mr. Musk and other Republicans have sought to politicize the wildfires, using it as a way to attack Democratic officeholders in California. Mr. Trump in particular has seized on environmental regulations, including federal and state protections for California’s endangered delta smelt fish. He falsely claimed that those regulations led to inadequate water availability for firefighting efforts.

Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a California research organization that focuses on water, said Mr. Trump was spouting “complete nonsense.”

“There’s no link between California’s water policies and efforts to protect endangered species and water availability for firefighters,” Mr. Gleick said. “They’re completely unrelated.”

He noted that Southern California reservoir levels, including ones that feed Los Angeles, are above normal for this time of year. “There’s no water shortage,” he said. “The real issue is that urban water systems are not built or designed to fight massive, urban wildfires.”