Four things to know about California’s wildfire smoke, climate change

Wildfires and climate change are locked in a vicious circle: Fires worsen climate change, and climate change worsens fires.

Scientists, including those at the World Resources Institute, have been increasingly sounding the alarm about this feedback loop, warning that fires don’t burn in isolation — they produce greenhouse gases that, in turn, create warmer and drier conditions that ignite more frequent and intense fires.