Firefighters create a firebreak near a home in the Northern California community of Middletown on Sunday. As fast-moving fires wreak havoc in the North, local officials warn that October could be a critical wildfire month in Southern California.
The three large fires raging in Northern California, which have combined to burn more than 270,000 acres, serve as reminders of the increased fire danger California's long drought has created.Now, with October looming, local officials are cautioning that Santa Ana winds are expected to exacerbate the danger here in Southern California and across the state.
“The Santa Anas bring very destructive fires,” San Bernardino National Forest Service. That occurs in the October time frame.”
Winds factor into the movement of any fire, according to Alcordo, but the arid Santa Ana winds amplify fires already over-fueled by extremely dry vegetation created by the drought.
“The drier fuels burn faster,” Alcordo said. “The trees in (the San Bernardino National) Forest would be resilient to fire if they were getting adequate water. (In a wet season) our fires burn the underbrush and the trees burn a little, but given that they're drought-stressed, they'll burn more and faster.”
The current record drought in California led to Governor Jerry Brown instituting the first statewide water restriction mandate in California’s history and has resulted in the lowest snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains in more than 500 years, according to a paper published Monday in the Nature Climate Change Journal.
Santa Ana winds aided in fueling the infamous firestorm of Oct. 2003, a month that saw 15 wildfires raging throughout Southern California. Among those fires was the Old Fire, which merged with the Grand Prix Fire in Devore and torched more than 91,000 acres before firefighters contained the blaze, according to previous Daily Press reports.
There are 12 fires currently burning in California, including the the Rough, Butte and Valley fires in Northern California and the 90-percent-contained Antelope Fire just south of Tehachapi, according to the Cal Fire website.
San Bernardino County Fire officials are now expecting October to be this fire season’s peak, according to San Bernardino County Fire Spokeswoman Tracey Martinez.
“Fire season is now year-round,” “but October is the height of the fire season in San Bernardino County due to the Santa Ana winds.
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Last week’s thunderstorm that led to flash flooding in Victorville, Apple Valley and Hesperia did not significantly help the situation.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” Martinez said. “Rain is generally a good thing, but when you get a little rain that doesn’t really soak into the ground, all it does is add to the ladder fuels — the underbrush and small-growth vegetation.”
More than 2,700 fire personnel are working to contain the Valley Fire that ignited on Saturday afternoon near Cobb, California, north of San Francisco.
The blaze, which has scorched 70,000 acres and destroyed 585 homes, was 30 percent contained as of Wednesday morning.
Gov. Edmund Brown declared a state of emergency for Lake and Napa counties with mandatory evacuations also issued for portions of these counties.
A massive wildfire erupted in California this past weekend, burning thousands of acres and destroying hundreds of homes. While firefighters have increased containment, the fire continues to grow.
Burned-out vehicles line a street and driveway where houses were also destroyed in a wildfire several days earlier, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, in Middletown, Calif. The fire that sped through Middletown and other parts of rural Lake County, less than 100 miles north of San Francisco, has continued to burn since Saturday despite a massive firefighting effort