It
’s official, fire season is here. Local firefighters have been
in a state of heightened awareness for over a week, but the season
officially began at 8 a.m. Monday.
It’s official, fire season is here. Local firefighters have been in a state of heightened awareness for over a week, but the season officially began at 8 a.m. Monday.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Santa Clara Unit, in close cooperation with local fire departments and Office of Emergency Services area coordinators made the official declaration.
The Santa Clara Unit has been hiring and training seasonal firefighters, and staffing fire stations 24/7 since May 19 in preparation for the fire season. The recent winds and warm temperatures are rapidly drying the annual grasses and other flammable vegetation in the greater bay area.
Due to the ever-present threat of wildfire during the spring, summer and fall months in the central coast areas of California, residents of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin counties are being asked to establish “Defensible Space” around homes and out structures.
CDF Fire Prevention Chief Steve Espe said the severity of the fire season is affected by many factors.
“But this is California, a semi-arid climate; its going to burn,” said Espe. “This year, one thing that could really tank us is that a severe hurricane season is predicted. That could pump a lot of moisture into the atmosphere, causing a lot of lightening. But whether that lightening is dry or wet, whether, if it is wet, will it put out what is ignited, that we don’t know.”
The additional personnel at CDF stations statewide were on duty Monday.
“We’ll go to 10 engine companies staffed 24/7 on emergency response status,” he said of staffing at the ranger headquarters in Morgan Hill. “We’ve had a few fires already on the east side of the region, over by I-5, the west side, and slowly over a period of weeks, it will dry out to the west side, which is by Summit Road.”
Even with much of the West still gripped by drought, experts say this fire season shouldn’t be as bad as last year, when fires had already begun in the Southwest by April.
Wildfires last year burned 6.9 million acres, most of it in the West. This year’s season isn’t as early — firefighters are just beginning to see fires — but the fire risk is still above normal.
“We’re seeing a little bit better conditions. But again, with five years of drought, certainly we’re not out of the woods yet,” said Larry Van Bussum, National Weather Service meteorologist to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. “You’ve still got some pretty major dry conditions across the West.”
More than 15,000 federal firefighters are available — 178 more than last year — along with 16 elite fire management teams, the same as last year.
Across the West, firefighters are going through training classes and refresher courses while NIFC continues to rely on its predictive services unit to forecast where dry lightning may hit. That enables crews to be sent in immediately and, it is hoped, prevent small fires from becoming large.
One change this year: Only 33 heavy air tankers compared to 44 last year will be in use; some in last year’s fleet were grounded after the wings snapped off two air tankers during retardant drops. Up to 57 single-engine air tankers will help make up the difference.
