WildfiresCalifornia braces for worst wildfire season in memory

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) is bracing for one of the longest and most difficult fire seasons in memory. A recent addition of $23 million to the emergency wildfire budget for the fiscal year that began 1 July, brings the department’s budget total to $209 million. “That’s just the first week, and we still have 51 more weeks to go,” said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for Cal Fire. “We’re not even to the peak of the fire season yet.”

The Fresno Bee reports that in the first week of the fiscal year, Cal Fire called on 2,500 firefighters throughout the state to battle the Monticello fire in Yolo County and the Butts fire in Napa County, which in total burned 10,800 acres. Even earlier this year, firefighters have had to battle an unusual amount of wildfires including an 865-acre blaze in the Lassen National Forest that began on 2 January; the 333-acre Red Fire that began two days later in Humboldt County; and a 1,952-acre wildfire that erupted 16 January in the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County. Cal Fire has battled nearly 3,000 fires since 1 January — about 900 above average for the period — and has already witnessed more acres burned so far this year than the entire amount for 2010, when fire torched 25,438 acres.

California officials began preparing for the current wildfire season as soon as officials confirmed that the state was facing one of its worst drought in a generation this past winter. In mid-January, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency, and Cal Fire was already hiring seasonal firefighters, a move that typically occurs in May. “Hiring seasonal firefighters in January in Northern California is not only unusual, it’s unheard of,” Berlant said. “But it was needed to meet the dry conditions through this winter.”

President Barack Obama last Tuesday requested from Congress $615 million in emergency funds to support firefighting efforts; California is expected to ask for the majority of the federal reimbursements as the state is likely to experience the most wildfires this fiscal year. “The additional $615 million will allow for more fires to be suppressed than currently possible in the U.S. Forest Service budget,” said William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, in a note to Cronkite News. “This will also allow for land-management agencies to go deeper into fire season without needing to use non-fire funds to pay for fire suppression as has happened too often in recent years,” his note said.