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Live from NPR news in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Firefighters are making some progress in

terms of slowing the spread of catastrophic wildfires in the Los Angeles area, but

acknowledged the situation

there is fluid. The current death toll from the fires is listed at five, but with the inability

to get into some areas, it may well go higher. Brent Pasquois is a battalion chief with Cal Fire.

He says with lessening winds today, there are hopes some percent of the blazes can be contained.

This welcomed break in the winds is going to allow

us to get that number to come up, to at least get some containment on this fire. Because the last two

days with those strong winds, 80 mile an hour winds, there was just nowhere to anchor in and start

putting this fire out. It was just trying to save lives. Around 180,000 people that are under evacuation

orders there. At least four wildfires are burning, consuming tens of thousands of acres in

the Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and the Hollywood Hills. President Biden today pledged

to pay 100% of the cost for 180 days of fire recovery. New research, meanwhile, suggests climate change is helping stoke the

wildfires in Los Angeles, as with David Romero of member station KQED as more. After two wet years,

grasses grew nearly double their average rate. In Southern California, received little rain

since last spring, drying out all that grass. Researchers call this hydro-clement whiplash and say the

conditions were perfect for a wildfire to spark. Then came strong winter winds. You see Merced

climatologist John Abbotsieu is one of the studies co-authors. It seems like that is the recipe for

many of the catastrophic fires that we've seen in Southern California.

The scientists say swings between alarmingly wet and arid conditions will only worsen as the world continues to warm.

For NPR News, I'm Ezra David Romero in San Francisco.

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