Last winter’s record-breaking precipitation helped lower the risk of massive wildfires, but recent changes in the weather are increasing the potential for fire in the region. Local experts say dry winds from the north arriving late on Tuesday, lasting into Wednesday, have increased fire concerns.
While dozens of fires have popped up along the California-Oregon border in recent weeks, ignited by lightning, there haven’t been any massive fires in Northern California just yet.
“We've been fortunate for the most part,” said Chelsea Peters, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “We're not seeing a lot of high fire weather days so far this year, but there's always the potential that we could see more dry and hot and windy days through the rest of the next month or so.”
Weather patterns, including lightning storms, are just one factor that experts take into account when trying to forecast the likelihood of fire in a given season. Aside from that, they also think about how wind and moisture in forest fuels might play a part.
Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson with the U.S. Forest Service in California, said this season has been harder to predict.
“When we’ve had really dry years, we can pretty much say, ‘yeah, if we get those ignition sources, we're going to see fire carry,’” she said.
But the past year hasn’t been typical. Freeman said extreme weather, like last winter’s intense precipitation, have made it harder to make any long-term predictions about the likelihood of massive wildfires. She said experts must rely on near-term factors to predict what will happen next, rather than modeling based on averages, making it harder to make any guesses further into the future.
With climate change, Freeman expects more extreme weather, which might make predicting fire weather more complicated in the long term.
“Now, all of a sudden we're dealing with outliers and trying to make an average out of outliers,” she said.
Peters said it’s hard to say what the next month will bring, but people should be cautious when fire weather is predicted. If a fire were to break out in the Sacramento area, she said it would likely be a human-caused blaze.
“These conditions that we're forecasting are just going to create fuel-to-the-flame essentially, and just allow those fires to grow and increase more substantially,” Peters said.
She advised residents to avoid actions that might spark a fire, like parking in dry grass or using a lawnmower during peak heat.
“When you have a really hot engine [atop] dry grasses, that can spark a flame and that potentially could lead to a wildfire,” she said.
Freeman said she doesn’t expect any huge fires on the immediate horizon, but she also couldn’t write off the possibility.
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today
