'Ahead Of Schedule' – Cal Fire Staffs Up, Suspends Burn Permits In Santa Cruz Mountains As Fire Season Starts Early
SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS (KPIX 5) – With fire season starting weeks earlier than usual, Cal Fire has already increased staffing and suspended burn permits in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Cal Fire has suspended the permits in Santa Cruz County weeks ahead of schedule, offering a preview of a drought-fueled wildfire season that will start sooner and last longer than normal.
"We are ahead of schedule by a month or month and a half," Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jed Wilson told KPIX 5.
Wilson said grass and brush that in a normal year would still be too green to pose much threat are instead a tinderbox that could easily be sparked by a discarded cigarette butt or a spark from a dragging tailpipe.
Cal Fire is staffing up ahead of schedule as well as they brace for a long, hot and potentially destructive summer.
"We've had to staff up. We have currently nine engines staffed. At peak, we'll have 13. So, we're like four weeks ahead of schedule, matching where the fuels and the weather have put us," Chief Wilson said.
It's not the Santa Cruz Mountains that are at risk. Virtually every browning hillside in the Bay Area is vulnerable.
"Just with everything being so dry and with climate change everything's getting a little hotter each year. And that's always the concern," said hiker Michelle Varela at San Jose's Alum Rock Park.
