Past winter rain does more harm than good for wildfire season

Cal Fire is reminding everyone to be prepared for wildfires as the season officially begins. While the rain this past winter may have eased California’s drought, it’s made things worse for wildfires. The rain allowed finer vegetation like grass and brush to grow, but once all that dries back out, there’s just more fuel to burn.

“The grass being a lot taller this year, the fire has more fuel, light flashy fuel to burn, it can potentially take off and burn a lot faster,” said Battalion Chief Reno Ditullio.

And when fires burn a lot faster, they spread much easier to larger trees. Something that wasn’t so much of a factor in the past.

“It wasn’t there the last 3 or 4 years because of the drought, so that’s kind of setting the stage, especially when we head into June, July and August, the heart of the summer,” said Ryan Muldren, Meteorologist with the NWS and the head of the Fire Weather Program.

Cal Fire has been ahead of the game, about three weeks ago they hired roughly 100 seasonal firefighters. That’s about a month and a half earlier than they normally do.

“Our firefighters are on, the engines are staffed, and we’re trained up and preparing for another active fire season,” said Ditullio.

And the hillsides across the Central Coast will be all dried out by the end of May.

“And it’ll happen very quickly, you’ll see that grass turn from a bright green to a dark brown in a hurry,” said Muldren.

Cal Fire also told KION they will be starting controlled burns in parts of Monterey County as early as next week.