eNewMexican

High winds and heat boost fire threat across California

By Diana Leonard

Fire danger is on the rise in California, as warm, dry and windy weather heralds a potentially long and difficult season. For several consecutive years, increasingly extreme, climate-change fueled wildfires have devastated parts of the state.

The area of greatest concern late this week is in Northern California, where strong northerly winds will combine with dry vegetation in the Sacramento Valley, after temperatures soared to 100 degrees on Wednesday afternoon.

The risk of fast-spreading blazes may ease some this weekend, but officials have expressed serious concerns about the months ahead as the entirety of California contends with a historically severe drought that has turned many areas into a tinderbox.

Due to a “critical” fire risk Thursday and Friday, the National Weather Service in Sacramento has issued a red flag warning, its alert for a dangerous combination of heat, low humidity and strong winds that could incite fast-spreading blazes. Under such conditions the National Weather Service advises extinguishing cigarettes completely, covering burn barrels and drowning fires with water — as just a small spark could ignite a major blaze.

The strongest winds are expected Thursday night and into Friday, with gusts of up to 55 mph and humidity percentages into the single digits. Wind advisories have also been issued for higher terrain in the San Francisco Bay area and in parts of the Sierra Nevada and foothills.

With temperatures rising this week, several wildfires have broken out across the droughtstricken state, much of which hasn’t seen significant precipitation in months.

In April, the mountains in the far north received a welcome reprieve from this winter’s record-setting dry spell, but not all areas were so lucky, including the Sacramento Valley and most of Central and Southern California.

Since Jan. 1, downtown Sacramento has seen only about 2 inches of rain — more than 10 inches below normal, according to Scott Rowe, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office there. Further north, Redding, Calif., has received a little over 4 inches of rain in 2022 — a deficit of more than 15 inches.

Wildfire outlooks have highlighted the risk to Northern California this spring and summer — a forecast that appears to be coming to fruition.

“Confidence is high for an early start to the large fire season,” stated an outlook issued May 1 by predictive services meteorologists with the Northern California Geographic Coordination Center. Fire potential was predicted to rise in May for the Sacramento Valley westward into the bay area and expand to much of the region in June and July.

Isaac Sanchez, battalion chief of communications for Cal Fire, said that much of the state is already primed to burn.

“The long-term effects of the drought and climate change are having very real impacts in terms of our live fuel moistures,” he said. “The fuel bed is ready to burn now in ways that it typically isn’t until late in the summer.”

Sanchez said that in his 23 years of experience with California wildfires, the risk for major wildfires didn’t usually arrive until late July or August.

“That window for large, destructive fires continues to widen every single year,” he said.

Early snowmelt has also allowed wildfires to move to higher elevations that should be too moist to burn even in summer — a documented trend with climate change that looks to repeat itself this year given current very low mountain snowpack.

Some of the fires that have already occurred this year, while not especially large, are an indication of the potentially explosive conditions on the ground.

LOCAL & REGION

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2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://enewmexican.pressreader.com/article/281724093160846

Santa Fe New Mexican