CALIFORNIA’S FIRE SEASON HITS MILESTONE WITH 4M ACRES BURNED, DOUBLING RECORD

California’s biggest wildfire season reached a new milestone Sunday with officials announcing that the state has now surpassed 4 million acres burned, more than double its previous record.

With crews on the biggest fire of them all, the August Complex, reporting more vigorous activity within the fire’s perimeter Sunday and another warm day ahead of them, “difficult conditions remain,” officials said.

Before this year, 2018 was California’s biggest year for wildfires with more than 1.8 million acres burned.

The fires this year have burned an area larger than Connecticut and have killed 31 people, according to Cal Fire. More than 100 people died in the 2018 fire season, the majority of them in the Camp fire disaster in Paradise.

Fires this year have destroyed more

than 8,200 structures and displaced tens of thousands of people.

Fortunately, the extent of property damage has not yet approached that of 2018, when more than 17,000 homes and 700 businesses were destroyed.

Still, the sheer magnitude is staggering. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California’s history, five burned within the space of a few months this year, consuming a combined total of nearly 2.4 million acres.

Lightning in August ignited many of California’s biggest blazes, but scientists say climate change has also contributed to the conf lagrations. It was the hottest August on record in California, and trees and brush were already abnormally dry and combustible after Northern and Central California saw exceptionally dry conditions last winter.

The August Complex fire, the largest in state history, came back to life Saturday night after winds pushed away the smoke and fed oxygen to the f lames. Residents in the rural towns of Wildwood and Platina were told to prepare to leave when the fire jumped a containment line Saturday, but the clearer air has also offered an opportunity for firefighters, officials said.

“On the aircraft side, it’s good because they need the visibility,” said Cal Fire spokeswoman April Newman.

As the week progresses, the weather is expected to work in firefighters’ favor, according to the National

Weather Service.

Though winds will continue to push the fire around on hilltops and sour air in the valleys with smoke, the ridge of high pressure that’s been keeping the air warm and dry will be displaced by mid-week with cooler, more humid air that will also feed moisture back into the vegetation during the night.

Until then, much of firefighters’ efforts will be focused on the fire’s northern and western zones, where persistently warm conditions have pushed the flames over containment lines, up steep hills and into treetops.

On both f lanks of the fire, crews challenged by rugged terrain are building contingency lines — a more distant, secondary defensive line away from the fire.

The August Complex fire has burned 985,304 acres and was 51 percent contained Sunday.

Fire officials have reported 100 percent containment of two other large fire complexes that were sparked by lightning in midAugust — the 396,624-acre SCU Lightning Complex fire in Santa Clara, Alameda and Stanislaus counties, and the 363,220-acre LNU Lightning Complex fire in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.

Fire crews on Sunday also reported progress against the Creek fire, burning in the Sierra National Forest, which was 315,413 acres and 62 percent contained.

The fire’s southern and western f lanks, closest to large population centers, have been tamped down, but the fire’s eastern edge f lared up overnight and jumped a bulldozed containment line, said the fire’s operations commander, Don Fregulia.

The North Complex fire, which killed 15 people after it raced into the towns of Berry Creek and Feather Falls, was 317,459 acres and 83 percent contained Sunday.

In the Los Angeles area, crews fighting the Bobcat fire in the Angeles National Forest said they were mostly focusing on mopping up and strengthening containment lines Sunday. Fire officials said a 300-acre internal island of unburned fuel northeast of Mount Wilson burned Saturday, producing a smoke plume.

The fire has burned 115,548 acres, was 84 percent contained and has destroyed 87 homes and 83 other structures as of Sunday, though that number could rise as teams continue to perform damage assessments, officials said.

Conditions around the fire are expected to cool later in the week, said National Weather Service meteorologist David Gomberg. Though cooler air has an obvious benefit for the crews outside, it also can limit the f ire’s potential behavior, Gomberg said.

When there’s a large fire on a day with little wind, rising hot air can play an outsize role in inf luencing what the fire does, experts say. The hot air and rising smoke can become so powerful that they overcome outside inf luences and control the fire’s weather, making it more extreme and unpredictable as a plume-dominated fire.

With temperatures dropping into the 80s at the highest elevations and 90s in the foothills by midweek, that plume-dominated fire potential is expected to decrease, Gomberg said.

“The hotter it is, the worse it can be,” he said. “You still have some potential for some plume development, but it won’t be as severe as what we’ve seen the past couple of weeks.”