SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Advocates for limits on indiscriminate outdoor lighting that obscures night skies worldwide are recognizing efforts by an oil and natural gas developer to reduce scattered light in New Mexico.

DarkSky International, an advocacy group for preserving or restoring views of starry skies, announced on Wednesday its first-ever certification of oil and natural gas sites that seek to reduce unwanted light pollution.

It recognized Denver-based Franklin Mountain Energy for lighting retrofits at two sites and one new location within a major oil production zone in southeastern New Mexico. The projects are expected to reduce skyglow at locations including Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a remote gathering point for astronomy buffs and night hiking.

“It doesn’t do anything to impact their bottom line — it actually makes the workplace safer,” said Peter Lipscomb, vice chair of the New Mexico chapter of DarkSky International, because sensible lighting reduces direct glare that otherwise can make it harder for workers to see.

“Being rewarded by (seeing) the dark skies of our ancestors, all those things together, it’s a winning combination.”

Franklin Mountain Energy cofounder Audrey Robertson said the lighting changes reduce electricity consumption. The company said in a statement that it worked on the effort with an alliance of federal land and parks agencies, telescopic observatories and the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. Recommendations from the alliance include equipment that directs light downward onto work areas and limits light that is cast upward into the sky.

Stargazers worldwide are grappling with the encroachment of outdoor lighting at night.

A 2023 study that analyzed data from more than 50,000 amateur stargazers found that artificial lighting is making the night sky across the world about 10% brighter each year. As of 2016, more than 80% of the world lived under light-polluted skies that obscure the Milky Way.

New Mexico state lawmakers are drafting a proposed update to a 1999 law that regulates outdoor night lighting in the state’s high-altitude mountains and desert. The initiative responds to a rapid increase in light pollution amid advances in energy-efficient LED technology that has spurred more outdoor night lighting that is often unshielded.

The National Park Service has set the protection of dark night skies as a priority at remote locations including the Chaco Culture National Historic Park, an area of New Mexico that Native Americans consider sacred. More than 99% of the park has no permanent outdoor lighting.

Lipscomb also credited oil operators in West Texas that are embracing changes to protect starry skies in collaboration with the McDonald Observatory, near Fort Davis, where research and education depends on dark nights.

Morgan Lee, The Associated Press

Manitoba’s Health Minister has ordered a review into the death this week of a middle-aged man who spent eight hours waiting for care at the emergency room of the province’s largest hospital, ultimately succumbing to his significantly worsening condition.

Uzoma Asagwara, who also serves as Premier Wab Kinew’s deputy, said the tragic death at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre on Tuesday has made it clear that the province needs to do more work to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Teachers delivering new mandatory screening tests to young students said the exercise took a lot of time and effort with questionable benefits, says a new University of Lethbridge study completed for the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Powerful Santa Ana winds, near hurricane strength at times, swept down the mountains outside Los Angeles and pushed wildfires into several neighborhoods starting Jan. 7, 2025. Well over 1,000 homes and several schools had burned by Jan. 8, and at least five people had died. Officials urged more than 100,000 residents to evacuate at the height of the fires, but with the winds so strong, there was little firefighters could do to control the flames.

Jon Keeley, a research ecologist in California with the U.S. Geological Survey and adjunct professor at UCLA, explains what causes extreme winds like this in Southern California, and why they create such a dangerous fire risk.

What causes the Santa Ana winds?

The Santa Ana winds are dry, powerful winds that blow down the mountains toward the Southern California coast.

The region sees about 10 Santa Ana wind events a year on average, typically occurring from fall into January. When conditions are dry, as they are right now, these winds can become a severe fire hazard.

The Santa Ana winds occur when there is high pressure to the east, in the Great Basin, and a low-pressure system off the coast. Air masses move from high pressure to low pressure, and the more extreme the difference in the pressure, the faster the winds blow.

Topography also plays a role.

As the winds rush downslope from the top of the San Gabriel Mountains, they become drier and hotter. That’s a function of the physics of air masses. By the time the winds get to the point where the Eaton Fire broke out in Altadena on Jan. 7, it’s not uncommon for them to have less than 5% relative humidity, meaning essentially no moisture at all.

Canyons also channel the winds. I used to live in the Altadena area, and we would get days during Santa Ana wind events when the wind wasn’t present at all where we lived, but, a few blocks away, the wind was extremely strong.

These strong, dry winds are often around 30 to 40 mph. But they can be stronger. The winds in early January 2025 were reported to have reached 60 to 70 mph.

Why was the fire risk so high this time?

Typically, Southern California has enough rain by now that the vegetation is moist and doesn’t readily burn. A study a few years ago showed that autumn moisture reduces the risk of Santa Ana wind-driven fires.

This year, however, Southern California has very dry conditions, with very little moisture over the past several months. With these extreme winds, we have the perfect storm for severe fires.

It’s very hard to extinguish a fire under these conditions. The firefighters in the area will tell you, if there’s a Santa Ana wind-driven fire, they will evacuate people ahead of the fire front and control the edges – but when the wind is blowing like this, there’s very little chance of stopping it until the wind subsides.

Other states have seen similar fires driven by strong downslope winds. During the Chimney Tops 2 Fire in Tennessee in November 2016, strong downslope winds spread the flames into homes in Gatlinburg, killing 14 people and burning more than 2,500 homes. Boulder County, Colorado, lost about 1,000 homes when powerful winds coming down the mountains there spread the Marshall Fire in December 2021.

Have the Santa Ana winds changed over time?

Santa Ana wind events aren’t new, but we’re seeing them more often this time of year.

My colleagues and I recently published a paper comparing 71 years of Santa Ana wind events, starting in 1948. We found about the same amount of overall Santa Ana wind activity, but the timing is shifting from fewer events in September and more in December and January. Due to well-documented trends in climate change, it is tempting to ascribe this to global warming, but as yet there is no substantial evidence of this.

California is seeing more destructive fires than we saw in the past. That’s driven not just by changes in the climate and the winds, but also by population growth.

More people now live in and at the edges of wildland areas, and the power grid has expanded with them. That creates more opportunities for fires to start. In extreme weather, power lines face a higher risk of falling or being hit by tree branches and sparking a fire. The area burnt because of fires related to power lines has greatly expanded; today it is the major ignition source for destructive fires in Southern California.

The Eaton Fire, which has burned many homes, is at the upper perimeter of the San Gabriel Basin, at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Fifty years ago, fewer people lived there. Back then, some parts of the basin were surrounded by citrus orchards, and fires in the mountains would burn out in the orchards before reaching homes.

Today, there is no buffer between homes and the wildland. The point of ignition for the Eaton Fire appears to have been near or within one of those neighborhoods.

Homes are made of dried materials, and when the atmosphere is dry, they combust readily, allowing fires to spread quickly through neighborhoods and creating a great risk of destructive fires.

Jon Keeley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.