Who (or what) is starting the California fires?

[Unladen Swallow]

Chains drug on the road from a trailer? Careless cigarette discarding? Arson?

I've not seen anything pointing to the sources of the fires over the past few years, these most recent included. Has anyone ever found out?

[Ocelot II]

1. Accidents, campfires, arson, lightning strikes.

It's very dry out there so it doesn't take much.

[Mz Pip]

2. The big one last year in NorCal

was started by an idiot just out of prison who pushed a burning car down a ravine. That was 500,000 acres. The Dixie fire was caused by a downed power line IIRC.

[Basso8vb]

3. Lightning starts many California fires.

Plus LA is much drier this season due to La Niña and with all of the heavier rainfall over the last 2 or 3 years there is much more fuel to burn.

Pretty much everything south of Monterey is dryer than usual this winter.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. They started yesterday. They're still under investigation.

[Rebl2]

5. Watching

A special report right now and they don’t know how they started, but those winds are sometimes hurricane strength causing it to spread uncontrollably. When the winds are so strong I guess they can’t get planes up to drop water or fire retardant. In addition little to no rain has fallen in months from what I heard on news this morning.

[intrepidity]

6. Honestly, I'm surprised there aren't more

So many potential causes (both accidental and deliberate) but these winds.....

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. Could be something as simple

as an electrical line blown down in high winds, which they are having. Or a cigarette butt carelessly discarded. Or...who knows? Accidental or on Purpose? We may never know.

[hlthe2b]

8. It takes a while and it isn't easy. Take Colorado's recent history:

Between 2000 and 2018, investigators determined the origin of just 43 percent of Colorado's largest wildfires. Once they determine that it was human-caused, unless someone comes forward, investigators are largely dependent on the public "seeing something. "

Last year's large Alexander Mountain Fire, which came all too close to me, was like that—and that fire included the famous Sylvan Dude Ranch, which has some acclaim nationally. A man who had been employed by the ranch and had an obsession with being a "hero" is now believed to have started it and charged. That is the exception.

[cadoman]

10. it doesn't take much when climate change has damaged the forests

Pretty much anything can be the cause. The forests have been cut up and have no resistance because they are not in the climate they should be in.

All it takes is a stray spark from a cigarette, firework, campfire, grill, etc. Even batteries.

[Wounded Bear]

11. Right now they're focused on saving lives and protecting property as much as they can...

Finding causes will have to wait.

[Think. Again.]

12. There are probably thousands of reasons a fire could start...

...anywhere, at any time.

The problem now is well-known to be the result of prime wildfire environmental conditions (dryer plant and materials, changing wind patterns, unseasonal changes of all kinds) that we are willingly creating through CO2 emissions.

[haele]

13. Can simply be dry winds and atmospheric static electricity

And someone getting ready to mow their lawn with a gas mower.
Or someone deciding to do some backyard grilling the night before and not ensuring the coals are completely out afterwards. A embers from smoldering charcoal can last for hours if kicked out of a fire pit or grill by the wind and landing in a pile of dried out leaves and weeds, no matter how cold it might get overnight.
We're experiencing really, really dry, windy, and my hair is frizzing out with all the static in the air.

Prime fire conditions. The only unusual part of this fire is that these particular conditions are occuring sooner in the year; wild fire season in the LA county area historically occurs between late May to mid October.

Haele

[Hekate]

14. Super low humidity & tinder dry vegetation, some of which evolved to burn Add high winds --our famous Sant Anas--

…and California burns