Rains have begun to lower fire risk, but they haven’t been spread out equally
A Santa Clara Cal Fire crew scrambles to extinguish a spot fire in the median of Interstate 580, during the Corral Fire west of Tracy, Calif., Saturday, June 1, 2024. Winter rains have started. Temperatures are dropping. Is California’s fire season over?Much of the northern part of the state, generally from Interstate 80 to Oregon, has seen multiple storms in recent weeks that have soaked dry landscapes and brought snow to the Sierra Nevada. But farther south, little rain has fallen.
Clements said that as a general rule, once an area receives at least 1 inch of rain after Oct. 1 in California, fire risk diminishes substantially. That’s because moisture levels in the soil, grasses and other plants increase. The weather is also often cooler and more cloudy than during the hottest times of the year. If a fire does start, flames spread more slowly than during extremely dry conditions, allowing firefighters a better chance to get the blaze quickly under under control.
To the south, the rain totals are microscopic. Santa Barbara has received just .01 inches since Oct. 1, while Los Angeles and San Diego are nearly as dry, with .07 inches each. One fire accounted for 41% of all the acres burned statewide. That fire, the Park Fire, began July 24 at a park in Chico when a man pushed a burning car down a grassy ravine in 100-degree temperatures. The fire burned for 64 days, blackening 429,603 acres in Butte and Tehama counties, and destroying 709 structures.
“We had a wet winter,” Clements said. “We weren’t in a drought. Severe drought years helped drive the big fire years we’ve had, like 2020.”
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