DisastersCalifornia braces for out-of-control wildfires
The lack of precipitation over the past two winters has California and federal officials concerned about the impact wildfires could have in the summer months. California has already recorded 845 wildfires this year, a 60 percent increase compared with the average for the previous five years.
Officials warn of severe wildfire conditions // Source: ca.gov
California officials warned citizens on Wednesday that many areas of the state could be in danger as a result of unusually severe fire conditions.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the National Weather Service has given many regions in the state its Red Flag warning for high fire potential due to strong winds, which will continue throughout the week. Fresno County has fought through more than 100 wildfires in the month of April, which is about double the number of fires reported last year, according to Captain Ryan Michaels of the Fresno County Fire Protection District.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said that California has recorded 845 wildfires this year, a 60 percent increase compared with the average for the previous five years.
“What’s really allowing these fires to grow are the wind and dry conditions,” Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant told WSJ.
The lack of precipitation over the past two winters has state and federal officials concerned about the impact wildfires could have in the summer months.
The dearth of winter rains “causes everything to start drying out early and lengthening the fire season,” Carl Skinner, research geographer for the U.S. Forest Service in Redding, California told WSJ.
The warnings were issued while firefighters battled a large blaze racing toward homes and vineyards early Wednesday in Sonoma County, northeast of San Francisco.
According to Berlant, the fire consumed 125 acres of brush and grass, and half of the fire remained uncontrolled while strong winds pushed it toward homes less than a mile from the unincorporated town of Knights Valley.
The origin of the fire remains unknown, but Berlant said that a couple of other fires in the area were started by a power line that went down in the high winds.
Cal Fire has advised residents to remove brush and high grass from around their homes and other structures they own and to refrain from mowing dry grass during the day.
Wildfires could hit up to ten states during this year, including Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico owing to drought conditions in these state, according to an assessment by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership between the University of Nebraska’s National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We’ll have fires,” Tim Brown, research professor at the Desert Research Institute, an arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education, told WSJ. “The question is will we have the kind of season which will really strain resources.”
