‘Firefighting at Christmas’ could be new normal, governor warns
Despite progress on blazes, firefighters in California brace for more strong winds
FALLBROOK, CALIF.— A week of destructive fires in Southern California is ending, but danger still looms.
Well into what’s considered the wet season, there’s been nary a drop of rain. That’s good for sun-seeking tourists, but could spell more disaster for a region that emerged this spring from a years-long drought and now has firefighters on edge because of parched conditions and no end in sight to the typical fire season.
“This is the new normal,” Gov. Jerry Brown warned Saturday after surveying damage from the deadly Ventura County fire that has caused the most destruction and continued burning out of control. “We’re about ready to have firefighting at Christmas. This is very odd and unusual.”
Even as firefighters made progress containing six major wildfires from Santa Barbara to San Diego County and most evacuees were allowed to return home, gusts of up to 80 km/h through Sunday posed a threat of flaring up existing blazes or spreading new ones. High fire risk is expected to last into January, and the governor and experts said climate change makes it a year-round threat.
Overall, the fires have destroyed nearly 800 homes and other buildings, killed dozens of horses and forced more than 200,000 people to flee flames that have burned over 700 square kilometres since Mon- day. One death, so far, a 70-year-old woman who crashed her car on an evacuation route, is attributed to the fire in Santa Paula, a small city next to Ventura where the fire began.
The Ventura blaze continued to burn into rugged mountains in the Los Padres National Forest near the little town of Ojai and toward a preserve established for endangered California condors. While many evacuation orders were lifted, new ones were established as the fire grew.
Firefighters were on high alert for dangerous fire potential even before the first blazes broke out. On Dec. 1, they began planning for extreme winds forecast in the week ahead.
By Monday, officials had brought in fire crews from the northern part of the state as reinforcements, marshalling engines, bulldozers and aircraft. On Tuesday more helicopters arrived from the National Guard and “every last plane we could find in the nation,” said Thom Porter, southern chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
But when flames met ferocious winds, crews were largely powerless to stop them. Firefighters from other states were already in place north of San Diego on Thursday when a major fire erupted and rapidly spread in the Fallbrook area, known for its avocado groves and horse stables. “We had many resources in the area very quickly on this incident, but unfortunately within several minutes the fire had gotten out of control and well-established, and necessitated massive evacuations,” said Steve Abbott, chief of the North County Fire Protection District.