Did Climate Change Worsen Chile's Wildfires? Not This Time, Researchers Say.

Climate change probably did not make the deadly wildfires that swept across part of Chile in early February any more likely, according to a group of climate scientists and meteorologists who specialize in the rapid analysis of weather-related disasters.

Central Chile has been in the grip of a prolonged drought for more than a decade. On top of these dry conditions, the region experienced an intense heat wave at the beginning of February that raised the risk of wildfires.

According to the new analysis by the group, World Weather Attribution, the probability of these conditions, specifically for the coastal region of Chile where the fires occurred, is now about 3 percent in any given year. That risk is not significantly higher than it was before human-caused climate change.

The fires hit the area around the coastal city of Viña del Mar. More than 130 people died in the fires, which destroyed more than 7,000 homes and burned more than 70,000 acres. People living in poorer, informal settlements suffered the most damage.

The researchers also did not detect a significant influence from El Niño, the natural climate pattern that warms the Eastern Pacific on a cyclical basis, sometimes for several months and sometimes for a few years at a time. The Pacific Ocean has been in El Niño formation since June.

"In this particular region, for these particular fire conditions, we found that neither climate change nor El Niño played a significant role," said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and an author of the study, at a briefing for reporters on Wednesday.

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