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As California firefighters battle historic wildfires across the state, our readers have reached out with questions about the role climate change plays in the intensity and frequency of these blazes. Others have expressed confusion over tweets by President Trump laying the blame on the state’s forestry and water management policies.

The New York Times reporter Lisa Friedman, who covers climate and wrote about this topic, dug into her reporter’s notebook to answer some of your top questions:

What exactly is the role of climate change in these intensifying wildfire seasons? Is it all climate change, or are there other factors as well?

Lisa: I put that question to Michael F. Wehner, a senior staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He stressed that there is no question that warming temperatures have led to severe droughts, meaning more dry fuel, as well as more intense heat waves. Those are essentially the conditions that have made for wildfire seasons that start earlier, last longer and affect larger areas.