ARE WE READY FOR FIRE SEASON?
As wildfire season looms, local and state officials are preparing for what could be yet another devastating summer. While last year’s wildfire season was the largest in California’s modern history, increasing drought conditions across the state impose additional threats.
In April 2020, much of the state was in a moderate drought with a large swath of southern California reporting no drought conditions whatsoever. This year, most of the state is suffering from a severe to extreme drought with only Humboldt and Del Norte counties reporting no drought conditions along their coasts, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“We are very concerned,” said Cal Fire spokesperson Jeremy Ward. “Looking at the numbers, 90% of California is in a moderate drought. At least two-thirds of the state is severe and about a third is extreme.”
Ward fears the drought will exacerbate the increasing severity and frequency of wildfires that residents have seen across the state in the past decade.
“Last year was a pretty exceptional year and if you look at it, 10 of the 20 largest fires
in the state’s history have occurred in the last decade and 17 of the 20 largest fires have occurred in the last 20 years,” Ward said. “(The) size, severity and frequency of these fires seems to be increasing.”
More than 650 wildfires ignited across Northern California last August due to a siege of dry lightning, Ward said.
“We do get those lightning sieges every so often but last year’s was especially rough with the weather conditions, the dry fuels and then just the sheer number of fires that were caused by all that lightning. It was really more than what our system is built to handle as far as trying to keep all those fires small and keep them from becoming major incidents,” Ward said.
Nearly 10,000 fires burned more than 4.2 million acres across the state last year making 2020 the largest wildfire season in California’s modern history. Just over 8,000 of those fires were managed by Cal Fire and consumed 1.4 million acres.
“If you compare that to the five-year average — which consists of Cal Fire and doesn’t include federally managed fires — the state averaged 5,856 fires per year and less than a half a million acres. Last year, Cal Fire’s blazes alone burned more than three times what the five-year average was,” Ward said. “Looking at the numbers so far from January through March, we’re already above the five-year average and above the number of fires and acres burned compared to last year.”
Ward added that escaped debris burns are the leading cause of wildfires in Cal Fire’s Humboldt-Del Norte unit.
“Debris burning is an important tool for fuels reduction and maintaining defensible space around structures but must be done with caution and extra precaution as we are again facing dry fuel conditions from below-normal rainfall,” Ward said.
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $536 million funding plan to help improve California’s resilience to wildfires. The plan includes increased vegetation management on public and private lands along with community-focused efforts for prevention and resilience.
“With California facing another extremely dry year, it is critical that we get a head start on reducing our fire risk. We are doing that by investing more than half a billion dollars on projects and programs that provide improved fire prevention for all parts of California,” Newsom said in a prepared statement. “Key parts of the administration’s initial proposal have been supplemented by legislative ideas that will pay dividends over the years, such as greater investments in forest health projects, improvements on defensible space, home hardening against fires, fire prevention grants, and prevention workforce training.”
North Coast Assemblymember Jim Wood and State Sen. Mike McGuire applauded the early funding plan and called it “a critical step to ensuring the safety of our communities.”
“With a very possible drought year ahead of us, we absolutely have to do everything possible to avoid another devastating wildfire season,” Wood said in a prepared statement. “Proven, shovelready projects are ready to go and will be able to start as soon as funding is available. This funding serves our immediate needs but I look forward to more funding coming in June when the rest of the 2021-22 budget is signed.”
Local and state fire officials have increased prescribed burning efforts and fire education in recent years but the work is neverending, said Cybelle Immitt of the Humboldt County Fire Safe Council.
“Preparing for wildfire in this day and age can be really overwhelming and uncertain because there’s just so much potential and it’s really not possible to know for sure when your efforts are going to be tested by an actual wildfire,” Immitt told the Times-Standard. “So there’s this pressure, this sense of urgency but then there’s also this uncertainty if it’s ever going to be needed. The type of work that folks need to do to prepare is neverending, there will always be maintenance and upkeep you need to tend to.”
Immitt said the Fire Safe Council and other local and state fire officials have stepped up the distribution of critical educational resources to help community members prepare for wildfire.
“I think it’s important not to get too overwhelmed,” Immitt said. “We’re putting together these resources that give people information about the steps that they can take in the face of uncertainty, it can be really empowering. At the very least
you’re doing something to prepare and understand a little bit better what might what you might be facing.”
Ryan Derby, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Emergency Operations Center Director, said the county is working on its evacuation information and will establish zones to improve the evacuation process.
“One of the big things that we have been focusing on since the last fire season is really developing our evacuation zones for the county,” Derby told the Times-Standard. “You know, looking at different population hubs and determining what the best ingress and egress routes are for the specific community we’re analyzing. The goal is to have preliminary evacuation zones developed for the broader county at large and be able to make that publicly available so residents will know what zone they’re in.”
Derby said the county is also working with the American Red Cross to develop sheltering expectations. Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated sheltering efforts across the state.
“We’re looking at whether we’re going to be doing a non-congregate model again with motels in the area or if we can make plans for a congregate-type sheltering setting,” Derby said. “We’re also working with the Community Organizations Active in Disaster which is an organization that kind of serves as a coordination hub for different volunteer organizations in the county. We’re really working to re-establish those relationships with different volunteer organizations and what that’ll hopefully do is provide some mentoring services and training services and ultimately help OES with the volunteer management aspect of emergency response.”
Both Derby and Immitt urged community members to take a look at the county’s fire resources, specifically the FLASH Home Risk Assessment, Preparing Your Home for Wildfire and Humboldt Alert.
Additional resources can be found at humboldtgov. org/2468/Fire-Safety-Re