Could a little rain increase fire risk? Cal Fire answers

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV)-- The wet weather system that hit the Monterey Pennisula Tuesday morning was a welcome sight but could come with unexpected fire danger.

KION spoke with Cal Fire about the potential for vegetation growth during these short wet systems and they told us what they look for when assessing fire risk.

"When you're looking at fire danger you're looking at three primary factors. Relative humidity, wind speed and field moisture content," Cal Fire Research Data Specialist II Eric Walmsley said. "When you look at the weather system like we had last night. It really wasn't that much in the short term."

Walmsley added that just .35 inches were recorded at Hastings in Carmel Valley Tuesday morning.

That is not a lot for a region that's in a drought.

"The rain we got won't have a significant impact on plant growth. We have already seen our 'green up' where all of the hills and grass areas really start to become green and grow during the spring," We've had this dry spell for the last two months that has kicked plants into their blooming mode. If we don't see more rain we won't see much more vegetation."

Cal Fire said that in the long term this amount of precipitation is insignificant for both the drought and vegetation growth but added that after long rain spells more plant growth can lead to an increase in fire fuel.

"The good thing about this system is it puts a damper on fire danger for about a week or so but we have a high-pressure system that will bring the temperature back up later this week."

The biggest factors they focus on are in terms of impacts to people, property and natural resources in California.

The biggest fear is a fire getting into a wildland-urban interface and burning down a community.