Tag Archive for: wildfires

a group of people standing next to a forest filled with fire

Gabrielle Canon

In California, a state that’s grown accustomed to months of smoky skies, mass evacuations and the ever-present fear of wildfire, 2022 felt unusual.

Summer came and went, the weather warmed, and the hillsides yellowed across the state, while residents held their breath. But a giant blaze or siege of simultaneous infernos – the events that have defined recent fire seasons – failed to appear.

By the time November rains brought relief to the drought-stricken landscape, slightly more than 360,000 acres had burned. That’s a strikingly low number, compared with the 2.2m that burned on average annually in California during the past five years, and only a fraction of the record 2020 season when more than 4.2m acres burned.

The number of fires sparked remained similar to past seasons, indicating most were stopped before they ballooned in size. Resource availability played a role, but so did helpful timing, as weather conditions continuously aligned in California’s favor, ensuring enough firefighters were available to battle each blaze from the onset.

But even with smaller numbers, the state wasn’t spared. Fires may have been comparatively smaller than previous years, but some still burned fiercely, leaving devastation in their wake. Nine people lost their lives and communities were destroyed. The patches of high-intensity burning that consumed mountain towns and turned tree-covered slopes into moonscapes offer a glimpse of the risks that remain, as well as a reminder that it could have been a lot worse.

“There is this element of luck to it – and this year, we got really lucky,” said Lenya N Quinn-Davidson, an area fire adviser with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension, a research institution. Despite the welcome reprieve brought by fewer acres burned, the dangers posed by the climate crisis have not dulled. She and other experts say the perceived lull is more of an anomaly than a hopeful trend. But it does offer an opportunity.

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For more information about CA wildfire season, call CJ Suppression at 888-821-2334 or visit the website at www.cjsuppression.com.

CJ Suppression proudly serves Corona, CA and all surrounding areas.

a group of people standing next to a forest filled with fire

BY HAYLEY SMITH – STAFF WRITER

Despite months of warnings fueled by extreme heat and drought-desiccated conditions, California’s deadly fire season ended with remarkably little area burned, with just 362,403 acres scorched in 2022, compared with more than 2.5 million acres the year prior.

Standing in a field of dry, brown grass in Napa this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and several state officials gathered to mark what they described as “the end of peak wildfire season” in most of California, attributing the year’s relatively small acreage to massive investments in forest health and resilience projects and an expansion of the state’s firefighting fleet.

But although the worst of the season may be behind us, experts noted that the remarkably reduced fire activity is probably less a factor of strategy than good fortune.

“We got really lucky this year,” said Park Williams, an associate professor of geography at UCLA. “By the end of June, things were looking like the dice were loaded very strongly toward big fires because things were very dry, and there was a chance of big heat waves in the summer, and indeed we actually did have a really big heat wave this summer in September. But that coincided with some really well-timed and well-placed rainstorms.”

Indeed, two of the year’s biggest fires — the McKinney fire in Siskiyou County and the Fairview fire in Riverside County — were both left smoldering after the arrival of rainstorms, including the unusual appearance of a tropical storm in the case of the Fairview fire, which helped significantly boost its containment.

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For more information about wildfire season, call CJ Suppression at 888-821-2334 or visit the website at www.cjsuppression.com.

CJ Suppression proudly serves Corona, CA and all surrounding areas.

a group of people standing next to a forest filled with fire

BY ALEXANDRA E. PETRI, GREGORY YEE

Large parts of Southern California were hit with Santa Ana winds Monday, prompting warnings of possible public safety power outages for tens of thousands of residents, but no shutoffs were required.

National Weather Service wind advisories for portions of the Inland Empire and Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties expired in the afternoon.

The strongest gusts in Los Angeles County, at 77 mph, were recorded by a station on Magic Mountain Truck Trail in the Angeles National Forest, said Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the weather service in Oxnard. Gusts in Los Angeles County generally reached 50 mph.

Winds had calmed down by midafternoon and conditions are expected to be calmer Tuesday, Lund said.

Meteorologists are eyeing the possibility of another round of Santa Ana winds Thursday, though it’s expected to be weaker than Monday’s event, she said.

In the San Diego office’s forecast area, which also includes the Inland Empire and Orange County, “Santa Ana winds of moderate strength are prevailing this morning, strongest below the Cajon Pass and just below the Santa Ana Mountains,” according to a 9:03 a.m. forecast discussion from the office. “Peak wind gusts in these areas are mostly around 45 mph. The strongest wind gust recorded was 65 mph at Fremont Canyon…. The winds have peaked and will gradually lessen through this afternoon.”

A couple of big rigs flipped on their sides due to the wind, Caltrans reported.

“This seems to be the biggest [Santa Ana event] so far this year,” said Casey Oswant, a meteorologist with the San Diego office.

Conditions for Tuesday in the San Diego office’s forecast area are expected to be sunny with highs in the 70s and light winds, said meteorologist Joe Dandrea.

Monday’s forecast had also called for relatively low humidity, creating elevated to briefly critical fire conditions in parts of Southern California and prompting one of the region’s largest utilities to issue warnings of possible power outages.

The driest and windiest conditions Monday morning stretched from L.A. County’s mountains through the Santa Clarita Valley and the northern San Fernando Valley, and in eastern Ventura County through Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and down into the Oxnard plains, the National Weather Service tweeted.

Southern California Edison said on its website that wildfire risks because of weather could lead to public safety power shutoffs for nearly 40,000 of its customers across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Weather monitoring for power shut-offs ended in the afternoon and no shutoffs were required, said Paul Griffo, an Edison spokesperson.

The Santa Anas, which typically blow most aggressively during the fall months, are known to fuel some of California’s largest fires as strong, dry gusts blow against brush dried from the summer that act as tinder. The Woolsey fire, Los Angeles County’s most destructive blaze, fed off Santa Ana winds in the fall of 2018.

Though Monday’s winds and dry conditions prompted advisories, the event was not long enough for a red flag warning, said David Sweet, a meteorologist with the weather service in Oxnard.

For more information about Santa Ana wind power outages, call CJ Suppression at 888-821-2334 or visit the website at www.cjsuppression.com.

CJ Suppression proudly serves Corona, CA and all surrounding areas.

a group of people standing next to a forest filled with fire

Over 90 large fires across seven states are triggering alerts over poor air

By Zach Rosenthal

Dangerous blazes continue to spread across the West, with 93 large fires burning in seven states.

As smoke plumes rise into the skies, alerts for hazardous air quality are in effect in parts of Oregon, Washington state, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. A special weather statement about hazardous air quality was also issued in east-central California and western Nevada. The smoke is most dense and toxic near its source but has also expanded in lesser amounts all the way to the East Coast.

Idaho — where the Moose Fire, the nation’s second largest, is burning — leads the pack in terms of large fires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).

Firefighters are battling 34 large fires in the state, followed by 23 in Montana, 13 in Washington, 12 in California and nine in Oregon. Utah and Wyoming each report one large fire.

In Oregon, eyes are on the Cedar Creek Fire, which has grown to more than 86,000 acres after being sparked by lightning Aug. 1. After days of extreme fire growth, the fire remains uncontained. The rapidly spreading blaze has forced nearly 1,500 evacuations, while blanketing nearby cities such as Bend in dangerously high levels of smoke. Smoke from the fire has prompted alerts in south-central Oregon.

Firefighters are also battling the massive Double Creek Fire in Oregon, which has burned more than 155,000 acres and is currently the nation’s largest blaze. That inferno has prompted the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to issue an air quality advisory for the northeastern parts of the state.

Fire and heavy smoke conditions in the West are unlikely to abate anytime soon, as hot and dry conditions have left forests ripe for fire growth. Red-flag warnings have been hoisted for much of eastern Wyoming because of hot, dry conditions conducive to fires.

Hazardous air quality conditions — air quality index (AQI) levels of 301-plus — have been observed in at least five states, including California, where the Mosquito Fire continues to burn between Sacramento and Reno, Nev., in the Sierra Nevada.

The Mosquito Fire has forced officials to evacuate more than 11,000 people. At least 25 homes have already been destroyed by the blaze, which has torched more than 48,700 acres and is just 16 percent contained.

Other active and dangerous fires in California include the Fairview Fire, which still burns close to the town of Hemet, though it is now 56 percent contained. Downpours from the remnants of Tropical Storm Kay have assisted crews in containing that blaze. That fire has burned more than 28,000 acres and killed two people who were trying to flee the blaze.

As more fires in the West are ignited and active fires expand, the smoke can travel as far as the East Coast and in the past has even blown into continental Europe. Wildfire smoke has been found to be surprisingly harmful to people even far from the source. A study published in 2021 found that three-quarters of smoke-related cases of asthma visits to emergency departments and deaths occurred east of the Rocky Mountains.

“Smoke is not just a Western problem,” said Katelyn O’Dell, lead author of the study and postdoctoral research scientist at George Washington University.

O’Dell suggested there may be a “lack of awareness” in the East about the effects of smoke, “because you’re not in proximity to these large wildfires, and they don’t really impact your day-to-day.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration described an “expansive area of light smoke” covering most of the Lower 48 state, except for the far southeast and far southwest on Monday. However, computer simulations indicate much of the smoke in the eastern United States is at relatively high altitudes, meaning it shouldn’t substantially compromise air quality near the ground. But NOAA reported some “moderate to thick smoke” had already reached as far east as Colorado, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa.

AirNow.gov, which monitors pollution across the country, showed air quality had worsened to “moderate” in portions of Colorado, including Denver, as well as northern Minnesota and western Iowa on Tuesday.

A total of 49,820 wildfires in the United States have burned 6,726,028 acres this year; both of these numbers are ahead of the 10-year average through Sept. 13.

Research has shown that human-caused climate change has contributed to an increase in the frequency of large fires and the size of the area burned by Western wildfires, as fire seasons become longer and more dangerous.

Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

For more information about fire safety, call CJ Suppression at 888-821-2334 or visit the website at www.cjsuppression.com.

CJ Suppression proudly serves Corona, CA and all surrounding areas.