As portrayed in novels, the California of the future is barely habitable. Brutal storms alternate with crushing droughts. Mudslides and wildfires create waves of climate change refugees.

Fiction? Perhaps less so after last week.

The wildfires in northern California obliterated neighbourhoods; killed dozens, made thousands evacuate or homeless; stunned fire authorities with its fast-moving blazes and tinderbox conditions that, as Governor Jerry Brown said, “we’ve never seen”.