You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Today on the show, we're talking California wildfires.

Tonight, a statewide emergency in California, and two new fires igniting near the Carquinas

Bridge.

A statewide emergency declared, hundreds of thousands forced to evacuate.

Look at the mandatory evacuation zone here.

It is now stretching all the way to the coast of the country.

An intentional blackouts by PG&E leaving a million plus without power.

It's prevented equipment from igniting fires.

It's because of dry conditions and high winds predicted for the New-

This could be the new normal for Californians.

But it's not that fires in and of themselves are new.

It's that fire season is getting longer.

What we see now is significant fires in October and November, and really even into December.

Jennifer Montgomery runs the California Forest Management Task Force.

And she says on top of a longer season, the fires are getting hotter and more intense.

So we are not burning as many acres as we burned historically, but the differences we are burning at much higher intensities now.

Much greater severities.

Today in the show, we talked to Jennifer about how we got here.

Three factors at the heart of why California is at such high risk for wildfires right now.

And it turns out one of them goes all the way back to Spanish colonization.

We're talking with Jennifer Montgomery about three factors that contribute to fire risk in California.

...