It occurs to me

I think everyone I know is in this one picture ...

There are really only two seasons in Southern California
Wildfire season and mudslide season

The yin and yang of the local weather patterns

The native plants, all of whom are intimately acquainted with the semi-regular Californian drought conditions bide their time in the sunshine. When the occasionally heavy rains of an El Nino year occur the plants to grow thick and tall in the steep canyons and arroyos, the aroma of the sage traveling for miles on the morning fog

But come summer time, months after the last measurable rainfall the stuff makes great kindling…

Seasonal dry offshore winds and wildfires can burn to the sea 

No stopping them really

Months later, during a rainy year, rains run off the hills in sudden streams

Removing the unguarded topsoil and occasionally the whole hillside

We are watching a few decades of an eons long crumbling of the mountains into the sea