Flames consume a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) (Associated Press) 
 
 Flames consume a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Both nature and humans share blame for California's devastating wildfires, but forest management did not play a major role, despite President Donald Trump's claims, fire scientists say. 
 
 Nature provides the dangerous winds that have whipped the fires, and human-caused climate change over the long haul is killing and drying the shrubs and trees that provide the fuel, experts say. 
 
 "Natural factors and human-caused global warming effects fatally collude" in these fires, said wildfire expert Kristen Thornicke of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. 
 
 Multiple reasons explain the fires' severity, but "forest management wasn't one of them," University of Utah fire scientist Philip Dennison said. 
 
 Trump tweeted on Saturday: "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests." 
 
 The death toll from the wildfire that incinerated the town of Northern California town of Paradise and surrounding areas climbed to 29, matching the mark for the deadliest single blaze in California history. Statewide, the number of fire dead stood at 31, including two victims in Southern California. 
 
 One reason that scientists know that management isn't to blame is that some areas now burning had fires in 2005 and 2008, so they aren't "fuel-choked closed-canopy forests," Dennison said. 
 
 In those earlier fires, Paradise was threatened but escaped major damage, he said. In the current blazes, it was virtually destroyed. 
 
 The other major fire, in Southern California, burned through shrub land, not forest, Dennison said. 
 
 "It's not about forest management. These aren't forests," he said. 
 
 The dean of the University of Michigan's environmental school, Jonathan Overpeck, said Western fires are getting bigger and more severe. He said it "is much less due to bad management and is instead the result of our baking of our forests, woodlands and grasslands with ever-worsening climate change." 
 
 Wildfires have become more devastating because of the extreme weather swings from global warming, fire scientists said. The average number of U.S. acres burned by wildfires has doubled over the level from 30 years ago. 
 
 As of Monday, more than 13,200 square miles (34,200 square kilometers) have burned. That's more than a third higher than the 10-year average. 
 
 From 1983 to 1999, the United States didn't reach 10,000 square miles burned annually. Since then, 11 of 19 years have had more than 10,000 square miles burned, including this year. In 2006, 2015 and 2017, more than 15,000 square miles burned. 
 
 The two fires now burning "aren't that far out of line with the fires we've seen in these areas in recent decades," Dennison said. 
 
 "The biggest factor was wind," Dennison said in an email. "With wind speeds as high as they were, there was nothing firefighters could do to stop the advance of the fires." 
 
 These winds, called Santa Ana winds, and the unique geography of high mountains and deep valleys act like chimneys, fortifying the fires, Thornicke said. 
 
 The wind is so strong that fire breaks — areas where trees and brush have been cleared or intentionally burned to deprive the advancing flames of fuel — won't work. One of the fires jumped over eight lanes of freeway, about 140 feet (43 meters), Dennison said. 
 
 Southern California had fires similar to the Woolsey fire in 1982, when winds were 60 mph, but "the difference between 1982 and today is a much higher population in these areas. Many more people were threatened and had to evacuated," Dennison said. 
 
 California also has been in drought for all but a few years of the 21st century and is now experiencing its longest drought, which began on Dec. 27, 2011, and has lasted 358 weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor . Nearly two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. 
 
 The first nine months of the year have been fourth-warmest on record for California, and this past summer was the second-hottest on record in the state. 
 
 Because of that, there are 129 million dead trees, which provide fuel for fires, Thornicke said. 
 
 And it's more than trees. Dead shrubs around the bottom of trees provide what is called "ladder fuel," offering a path for fire to climb from the ground to the treetops and intensifying the conflagration by a factor of 10 to 100, said Kevin Ryan, a fire consultant and former fire scientist at the U.S. Forest Service. 
 
 While many conservatives advocate cutting down more trees to prevent fires, no one makes money by cutting dead shrubs, and that's a problem, he said. 
 
 Local and state officials have cleared some Southern California shrub, enough for normal weather and winds. But that's not enough for this type of extreme drought, said Ryan, also a former firefighter. 
 
 University of Alberta fire scientist Mike Flanigan earlier this year told The Associated Press that the hotter and drier the weather, the easier it is for fires to start, spread and burn more intensely. 
 
 It's simple, he said: "The warmer it is, the more fire we see." 
 
 For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit that the air warms, it needs 15 percent more rain to make up for the drying of the fuel, Flannigan said. 
 
 Federal fire and weather data show the years with the most acres burned were generally a degree warmer than average. 
 
 "Everyone who has gardened knows that you must water more on hotter days," Overpeck said. "But, thanks in part to climate change, California isn't getting enough snow and rain to compensate for the unrelenting warming caused by climate change. The result is a worsening wildfire problem. 
 
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 Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears . 
 
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 The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ||||| “It really is time for a reckoning with this unfit leader,” Neil Young wrote of Donald Trump Sunday. This time, Young’s wrath wasn’t just brought on by the president’s continued unauthorized use of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” which the musician had railed against less than a week ago. Young has lost the Malibu home he shared with his wife, Daryl Hannah, in the devastating fires. Seeing Trump blame the deadly calamity on the state of California itself set him toward writing a response, not in the form of a tweet but rather a 300-word essay that he published on his website, Neil Young Archives. 
 
 “California is vulnerable — not because of poor forest management, as DT (our so-called president) would have us think,” the longtime environmental activist wrote on his website, Neil Young Archives. “As a matter of fact this is not a forest fire that rages on as I write this. We are vulnerable because of Climate Change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it… Our temperatures are higher than ever here in our hottest summer on record. That has not helped. DT seems to be the Denier. (I’m holding back and not using the word liar just because it rhymes with denier.) It really is time for a reckoning with this unfit leader. Maybe our new Congress can help. I sure hope so.” 
 
 Young ended the essay by writing, “Imagine a leader who defies science, saying these solutions shouldn’t be part of his decision-making on our behalf. Imagine a leader who cares more for his own, convenient option than he does for the people he leads. Imagine an unfit leader. Now imagine a fit one.” 
 
 Young was hardly the only celebrity responding to Trump’s tweeted assertions that the fires could be attributed to California’s bad management, although he might have been the first so directly affected by the firestorm. “This is an absolutely heartless response,” Katy Perry tweeted back to Trump. “There aren’t even politics involved. Just good American families losing their homes as you tweet, evacuating into shelters.” Rod Stewart posted, “Mr. President, while people’s homes are burning, while lives are being lost & while firefighters are risking their lives, California needs words of support & encouragement, not threats or finger pointing & accusations. Where is Winston Churchill when you need him?” 
 
 Just days earlier, immediately prior to the midterm elections, Young had used his first (and, to date, still only) Instagram post to let the free world know just how he felt about Trump using one of his signature songs as a staple at campaign events, despite his beseeching the president to stop. 
 
 “DT does not have my permission to use the song ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at his appearances,” Young posted. “Legally, he has the right to, however it goes against my wishes. I made this perfectly clear, after he played it in a media moment to announce his candidacy. I asked him then, in a widely shared, public letter to cease and desist. However, he chose not to listen to my request, just as he chooses not to listen to the many American voices who ask him to stop his constant lies, to stop his petty, nasty name calling and bullying, to stop pushing his dangerous, vilifying and hateful rhetoric. This man does not represent the character of the people in the USA that I have come to know and love. I’m Canadian so I can’t vote in the States, but if you can,take this great opportunity to make your voice heard,and vote!” 
 
 The loss shared by Young and Hannah, his wife of a few months, is not the first time the musician has been hit by a Malibu fire. In October 1978, Meeker Mansion, the home where he’d lived while recording albums like “Zuma” in the mid-‘70s, burned to the ground in an arson fire. A Malibu recording studio where Young had worked, Indigo Ranch, was destroyed in a 2007 fire. 
 
 Young’s website, Neil Young Archives, currently offers all of his decades of music for free, although it will move to a subscription model later in the year. The song title listed as the No. 1 streamed song by fans over the weekend seemed to suggest their reaction to all the tragedy hanging in the air: “Helpless.” 
 
 Young’s statement Sunday appeared in a newspaper-like section of his website that he calls the NYA Times-Contrarian (under the headlines “BIG WINDS BLOW. Extreme, Unseen & Dire. That’s What Climate Change Looks Like” and “ZUMA hit by Giant Fire & Wind as all living things seek shelter”). His statement in full: 
 
 “Life everywhere is affected by these fires. Residents of Malibu have brought their animals to the beaches for safety, shelter and companionship. 
 
 “California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think. As a matter of fact this is not a forest fire that rages on as I write this. We are vulnerable because of Climate Change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it. 
 
 “Our temperatures are higher than ever here in our hottest summer on record. That has not helped. DT seems to be the Denier. (I’m holding back and not using the word liar just because it rhymes with denier.) It really is time for a reckoning with this unfit leader. Maybe our new Congress can help. I sure hope so. 
 
 “California is a paradise for us all. A gift, we are sad to not be able to defend it against Mother Nature’s wrath. We love California. We are not ill-prepared. We are up against something bigger than we have ever seen. It’s too big for some to see at all. Firefighters have never seen anything like this before in their lives. I have heard that said countless times in the past two days, and I have lost my home before to a California fire, now another. 
 
 “Hopefully we can come together as a people to take Climate Change on. We have the tools and could do it if we tried. There is no downside. 
 
 “Imagine a leader who defies science, saying these solutions shouldn’t be part of his decision-making on our behalf. Imagine a leader who cares more for his own, convenient option than he does for the people he leads. Imagine an unfit leader. Now imagine a fit one. 
 
 “Look around. 
 
 NY”
– President Trump on Saturday expressed his belief that the wildfires ravaging California can be blamed on "gross mismanagement of the forests." Neil Young, for one, isn't having it. Variety reports the musician lost his Malibu home in the fires, and on Sunday he offered a retort to Trump on his website in the form of a 300-word post (you'll need to register to read it in full). It reads in part: "California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think. We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it. ... We love California. We are not ill-prepared. We are up against something bigger than we have ever seen. It’s too big for some to see at all. Firefighters have never seen anything like this before in their lives." The AP backs up Young's assertion by way of an interview with University of Utah fire scientist Philip Dennison. He says there are a number of contributing factors, but "forest management wasn't one of them." He elaborates on why: Some of the areas that have been hit saw fires in 2005 and 2008, so they aren't "fuel-choked closed-canopy forests." And in the case of Southern California, what has burned isn't forest but shrub land. So of the other contributing factors, which was the big one? The Santa Ana winds, says Dennison. "With wind speeds as high as they were, there was nothing firefighters could do to stop the advance." Even fire breaks—areas where vegetation has been cleared or intentionally so as not to offer the oncoming flames fuel—has been no match. One of the fires straddled eight lanes of freeway, a distance of roughly 140 feet, he says.