Extended drought leads to increased wildfire threat

The resort at Mammoth Mountain just announced it will extend the skiing season into June because of storms in April and May.

A week earlier and 350 miles south, tinder-dry conditions fueled a wildfire that ripped through Laguna Niguel, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate and destroying 20 homes.

The late snowfall in the Sierra may have been good for skiing, but it did next to nothing to relieve overall drought conditions and lessen fire danger across California.

Both, as we’ve been told repeatedly, are very bad and seem certain to get worse.

The historic drought has triggered recent restrictions on water use and heightened caution about fire safety.

Meanwhile, the Laguna Niguel fire coincided with a flurry of news reports about a new study that further quantifies the fire risk now and in the future, not just in California but across the nation.

The study by First Street Foundation includes remarkable data that details fire threat from broad regions such as an entire state to the granular level of a specific property address.

This mirrors a study the foundation was involved in not long ago that assesses the likelihood of flooding that also attracted considerable attention because of sea-level rise, which like drought and wildfires, is increasing in probability because of climate change.

Authors of the study noted that Western states already face high fire risk, but the percentage of risk actually will rise more in Southern states, including Texas and Florida, and Appalachian regions like Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The Washington Post noted the study shows that 16 percent of Americans, or 1 in 6, currently live in wildfire hazard areas. That’s projected to grow to 21 percent in 30 years.

The study concludes that just over 100,000 properties in California face severe fire threat, a number that the Los Angeles Times pointed out is projected to grow to about 600,000 by 2052.

•

Among counties, San Diego faces substantial wildfire threat, but is not among the worst in the state or nation, according to the study. Getting into the weeds a bit, for this calculation, the study uses a standard of properties with at least a .03 percent risk of burning. In California right now, San Diego ranks fourth with 277,400 properties (37.3 percent) at risk. That follows Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino in the number of properties at risk.

“Homes that have wildfire risk today, their risk roughly doubles over a 30-year period because the climate is warming, fuels are drying,” Matt Eby, founder

and executive director of First Street, told CNN.

Some caveats are in order. That’s a probability, not a given. The study’s modeling is based on historical trends and other data. But wildfires aren’t always predictable. Homes in highrisk areas sometimes have been relatively unharmed by wildfires while others in seemingly safer areas have been ignited by wind-whipped embers.

Nevertheless, the study sought to address that.

“To account for the influence of ember spread, an ‘ember zone’ of 300 meters surrounding any estimated ember landing location was used to determine indirect exposure by estimating how far isolated embers may get from dense ember landing areas or a wildfire line,” the study says.

People can check fire and flood risk for specific properties, ZIP codes, cities and states by going online to riskfactor.com. Individuals and businesses can see what risk their properties face, information that could help them determine whether additional protections are needed.

“Unfortunately, (until) this point there’s never been a way for people to understand what their wildfire risk is on a property level,” Eby said.

CNN said the study’s data will be integrated into Realtor.com so prospective buyers can see what the fire risk is for any given property.

Outside experts told various news organizations that the methodology of the study appeared sound. Greg Dillon, director of the U.S.

Forest Service Fire Modeling Institute, said the information is valuable and that the Forest Service is working on similar models. But he suggested that individual actions triggered by fire-risk knowledge only go so far.

“If one home in a neighborhood works to mitigate their wildfire risk, but their neighbors aren’t doing anything, then they’re not effectively reducing their risk very much. It takes community action,” said Dillon, according to the Los Angeles Times.

First Street Foundation envisions potential policy benefits from its study.

“Enhanced understanding of the specific nature and location of wildfire risk enables communities to more effectively lobby for funding for fuel treatments, prescribed burns, and other wildfire risk mitigation strategies that may be used to reduce risk to houses,

businesses, and communities across the U.S., and could help constrain the costs associated with (fire) suppression activities,” the study says.

The traditional California fire season runs June through November, but that seems like from a bygone era. Cal Fire says the fire season is starting earlier and ending later almost every year.

Still, despite the drought and dry vegetation, some meteorologists expressed surprise at the Laguna Niguel fire.

“It’s way too early” for a fire like that in Southern California, said Bill South, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hanford. “This has the potential to be a very bad fire season. And as everyone knows, we’re in a drought here throughout the entire state of California.”

The fire wasn’t fanned by hot, whipping Santa Ana winds blowing from the east, as is typical during fire season. Instead, temperatures were mild and the wind, while gusty, came off the ocean.

“The humidity was high, which isn’t necessarily optimal to get that kind of burning ... and yet we had a substantial fire,” Greg Martin, of the National Weather Service in San Diego, told CNN.

The Coronado Pointe community of Laguna Niguel was hit hard by the blaze.

The 92677 ZIP code area, which includes that neighborhood, faces a moderate fire threat in the next three decades, according to riskfactor.com.

The database shows the town of Mammoth Lakes (93546), just east of the mountain, must deal with a major fire risk.