An aerial view of rows of houses destroyed by fire
A drone captured this image of structures damaged by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, in January 2025. Photo by Ringo Chiu/Shutterstock

Although winter wildfires in California don鈥檛 occur as frequently as summer fires, they can be highly destructive when they do break out. For example, the January 2025  killed 19 people and completely destroyed more than 9,400 structures in Los Angeles County. A team including Shineng Hu, an assistant professor of climate dynamics at the Nicholas School of the Environment, and postdoctoral associate Shizuo Lu used observations and climate model simulations to understand what climate factors could set the stage for winter wildfires.

Reporting in , they found a previously overlooked mechanism indicating that less western Eurasian snow cover could trigger conditions favorable to wildfires in Southern California. Accurately accounting for overseas snow cover could potentially enhance forecasts for winter wildfires in the Los Angeles area, according to the authors. 

Hu runs the , which combines observations, theory and climate modeling to study climate dynamics on a broad range of timescales, with a particular focus on ocean-atmosphere interactions.