Do the fires that are still raging in Los Angeles and turning part of America's second-largest city into an inferno foreshadow what could happen in other parts of the world? Climate change will bring more megafires to the planet in the coming decades. Rising global temperatures, more frequent heatwaves and droughts form a lethal cocktail that creates ideal conditions for wildfires. While the situation in California is not entirely comparable to France's, it shares similarities and serves as a warning sign for experts, who are following it closely.

"The American West is a precursor of what awaits us in France, in terms of the recurrent droughts, heatwaves and potential human and economic damage caused by wildfires," said Julien Ruffault, a fire researcher at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE). Beyond climate similarities, California and the Mediterranean region, particularly southeastern France, share "comparable vegetation, such as flammable scrublands," added Renaud Barbero, a climatologist at INRAE. However, uninterrupted forest expanses are much larger in the United States, so "the fires there are bigger and more powerful," he said.

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