California’s drought, wildfire dangers rising at stunning pace
California’s drought and wildfire conditions are accelerating at unprecedented rates, according to state officials, and residents should brace for a summer of widespread burning and mandatory water conservation measures in some regions.
As reservoir levels across the state continue to drop, and as parched vegetation poses an increasing threat of wildfire, officials in Sacramento and Southern California offered a bleak assessment of the state’s drying climate, saying it has already begun to affect people, plants and animals.
The current drought, which blankets the entire state and a broad swath of the western United States, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, is already outpacing the state’s devastating 2012-16 drought, said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
“It really wasn’t until year three or four when we saw these intense conditions ... we’re now experiencing in the second year of the drought,” Nemeth said Friday. “That acceleration is really what’s new about this drought and what we’re working to respond to.”
California typically relies on the gradual melting of Sierra snowpack to fill its reservoirs, Nemeth said. But this year, the state saw record evaporation and record low runoff into streams and reservoirs.
It is “unprecedented in the breadth and severity of this regional drought,” said Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency.
At the same time, fire officials in Southern California warned that wildfire conditions are already like those typically seen in August and September.
“We’re seeing fires move fast,” said Chief Brian Fennessy of the Orange County Fire Authority. “Fires that normally would be an acre, 2 acres, 5 acres, so far this year are getting to 30, 50 and beyond.”
He urged people to evacuate as soon as they’re told to do so.
These dry conditions do not bode well for the Fourth of July weekend, when first responders will probably face their first big test as a predicted heat wave collides with amateur fireworks displays.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded a drought emergency to 41 California counties, covering 30% of the state’s population. On Friday, Santa Clara County declared its own local emergency, saying drought conditions were so extreme that water levels were not adequate to meet demand.
“The reality is we live in an arid region that will continue to experience droughts,” Jasneet Sharma, director of Santa Clara County’s Office of Sustainability, said in a statement. “There are many steps that we should all take, from large-scale conservation projects and household-level water conservation retrofits to simple household changes like turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth.”
Water conservation is likely to ramp up, possibly becoming mandatory in some communities, said Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.
“We really need to see conservation and efficiency here as just (a) simple course of action that we must do, no matter if it’s dry or it’s wet,” Esquivel said.
This year’s parched conditions are already causing concern, especially after a heat wave swept across Southern California this month, breaking several records and heating Palm Springs to 123 degrees.
Usually the natural world can adapt to gradual changes in the climate, but California’s conditions are changing so frequently that plants and animals are not able to keep up, said Chuck Bonham, director of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The decrease in water levels has caused some rivers to heat up, becoming uninhabitable for some fish. Department of Fish and Wildlife teams recently removed almost 17 million Chinook salmon from four hatcheries in the Central Valley and released them into the ocean at places such as San Francisco Bay. The number of fish rescues has increased since the previous drought, Bonham said.
The drying also carries severe consequences for wildfire.
On Friday, fire officials gathered outside a Los Angeles County fire station in La Canada Flintridge and said the heightened fire conditions were because of drought and unseasonably warm temperatures. Scientists say that climate change has driven the shifts by creating hotter, drier weather interspersed with more extreme, erratic precipitation events.
Live fuel moisture levels, which measure the dryness of vegetation, are on par with those typically seen in the late summer or fall, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby, who serves as mutual aid coordinator for a region comprising five counties.
“You saw the fire in L.A. city, the Palisades fire that burned in the fog,” he said, referring to the blaze that forced evacuations in Topanga Canyon in midMay. “That’s kind of unprecedented, you would think in years past, but it’s the norm now.”
The fire broke out in an area that hadn’t burned in 50 years and that was choked with drought-killed vegetation, he said. Because of the topography and dryness, it grew to more than 1,000 acres before firefighters were able to bring it under control, despite relatively calm winds.
“Our expectations are that during this summer, we’re going to have those types of fires and larger with just the winds off the ocean,” Osby said. “And then we’re really concerned moving into the fall months when we start getting our significant wind-driven fires.”