Weather Pattern Foreshadows 'Very Active' Northern California Fire Season
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- After some relatively quiet summer months Northern California is creeping into August, and several months that could bring very warm weather on top of a significant fuel load for potential wildfires.
"Yeah we have seen that kind of weather pattern in the past," said Captain Justin Hartman of Cal Fire. He is talking about the latest forecast from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. In short, it says Northern California could be headed toward a 'very active' fire season from now through October. "We definitely do have the fuel loading because of how much rain we've had this winter," Hartman says of the situation in Napa County.
The concern in Napa County echoes worries in Contra Costa County. "That adds up to somewhere between 150 to 200 percent of the fuel load we had in the same spot and across the county or year ago," explained Steve Hill of the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
That situation is the case across much of Northern California, so with fire activity below average during July, the concern is that the state is heading towards the most dangerous fire conditions, heat and warm dry winds, with much of that fuel still on the ground.
"When all three of those topics align definitely create something that's really hard for us to control with the wind speeds up to about 50 miles an hour it's really hard to get ahead of these fires and stop it," explains Fire Captain Hartman.
'Above Normal significant large fire potential' is the actual phrase in the report, along with a forecast for warmer and drier than normal conditions in Northern California.