One of the things Calfornia is in the news for each year is the wildfire season. Usually, fire season tends to peak in the fall as that is when the fire fuels are at their driest. Weeds have completely died off, last years dead brush, slash, berry vines, etc. have lost their moisture. Forested areas have dried out completely of snow, runoff, and any residual moisture in these fuels has been extracted by summer heat and all the dead and dying timber and slash is fully exposed to fire danger.
We see many fires already breaking out around the state now, in mid-June. Here in Butte County, the Humboldt Fire, which is down to the last bits of mop-up duty, was a national news item. A total accounting so far of 84 homes and multiple out buildings were destroyed, along with over 20,000 total acres burned of forested, grazing or brushy canyon lands.
Conditions are acutely dangerous this year. Because of low overall rain and snowfall, the fuels are extremely dry all over with the moisture content in the less than 10% range, which is usually what is typical for later in the year. Indeed, CalFire chiefs I’ve spoken to call it August-September conditions in June. This means we are in for one difficult and probably expensive firefighting year. Just as the Humboldt fire operations are nearly finished, NorCal experienced a lightning storm that hit many counties with an estimated 5000-6000 lightning strikes, resulting in an estimated 500-600 fires randomly spread about. The vast majority are not threatening communities, enabling, or rather requiring, limited available firefighting resources to concentrate on those greatest threats.
Great credit is owed to Cal Fire for minimizing the Humboldt blaze that could’ve done much much more damage, as well as firefighters from other jurisdictions that pitched in to help. San Francisco, San Diego, all over. Even a DC-10 jumbo jet was fighting fire there. {if you don’t think that isn’t something else to watch work…a big jet like that doing 180 degree turns as tight as possible to look over and decide where to make the run…to then drop 12000 gallons of retardent over a mile long strip, wow.] We are very grateful for the firefighter support from all over California for their service. Their task doesn’t get easier as they prioritize and attack the many lightning strike fires. Unfortunately, the most remote fires, in roadless and/or Wilderness areas will burn longest and likely a few will become very large fires due to lack of access by difficult terrain and idealist policies that have prevented or even removed road accesses. In some cases, fires like these in the past have burned for months, obviously destroying many thousands of acres of whatever may be in its path. Environmentally speaking, bad for habitat, bad for air quality.
One special unit I’d like to note was from Newport Beach. Sadly, one of their firefighters, Kevin Pryor, 31, upon returning home to Newport after his strike team had completed their work during the peak of the Humboldt Fire, was found at home in an unconscious state and later passed away at Western Medical Center. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore adjourned our session in his memory today and I know that all of us from Butte County would want to make known not just our gratefulness for Kevin’s service here, but to extend our most sincere condolences and prayers of comfort to his family, his friends and his colleagues. During his career, among his many attritbutes and accomplishments, he had been named as Valedictorian of his Academy and awarded Firefighter of the Year. God Bless Kevin Pryor and his family and as well, all of his colleagues this fire season.