I have heard [feel free to tell me if it’s not true] that the Santa Ana Winds have the same properties that blow on the Sahara.
MOST of So Calif, not the High Sierras.
The Santa Anas blow west OFF the desert, bringing dry air and strong winds, but the coastal areas of Southern California are simply not deserts by any definition. It’s the same climate as the Greek and Italian coastal areas. Are you going to tell everyone that those are deserts?
Death Valley and Maricopa are in the desert. Santa Barbara and San Diego are not.
I’m in Arizona, but the way I understand it is different.
First the whole area is arid so the air and winds are dry unless a wet low is pushing winds and instead these are generally driven by a High north of the area. The high brings winds from the higher elevation in the inland mountains down from those elevations and as they come to lower elevations they heat up from compression as all winds coming off mountain ranges do.
What is different here is that there are coastal canyons at the weathered west side of these mountain ranges. These canyons act like venturi or puckered lips when you whistle, increasing the wind speed even more. So you have winds that are 20 to 40 at high elevations becoming 40 to 70 as they blow out into the low coastal lands.
This hits the dry arid coastal California lands that have wet-land controls on what can be cleared or burned and you get fires that rage from being wind driven.
Now in the African Sahara desert you might have some winds impacted by mountains, but in general you have equatorial winds driven over vast deserts that just get more and more dry — not very intense in speed — very dry.
I hope my arm chair attempt helps.