SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Blazes have burned thousands of acres, cued mandatory evacuations and threatened some of the state’s oldest and most impressive trees, but far fewer acres have burned in California wildfires through the first few weeks of summer than at the same point last year.
The tides may turn in the coming weeks as conditions stay hot and grow drier, but the numbers to date suggest the state may have averted a particularly nasty start to this wildfire season.
The total for acres scorched reached 25,135 across just over 4,400 fire incidents through Monday, according to the latest data available from Cal Fire.
That’s well below the 204,921 acres burned across nearly 860 more wildfires by the same date in 2021. And though about 400 more fires have burned this year than the year-to-date average going back to 2017, acreage lost in 2022 remains only a small fraction of the state’s five-year average at this point of a little more than 345,000 acres.
Things seemed to be heading in a more dire direction earlier this year, when parts of Northern California including the central Sierra Nevada mountains received record-low precipitation for the stretch of January through March.
On April 9, the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for most of the Sacramento Valley, which the agency said marked the earliest fire-weather advisory its Sacramento office had ever issued in spring. Fortunately, no major fires ignited.
Wildfire season is now well underway. Thousands of fire personnel have responded to the recent Washburn Fire at Yosemite National Park, the Electra Fire near Jackson and the Rices Fire in Nevada County, all of which ranged from several hundred to a few thousand acres, forcing mandatory evacuations.
What’s behind the mild start?
California’s comparatively mild start to the wildfire year up to this point could be a mix of preparedness and good luck.
Yosemite’s forest ecologist says behavior on the Washburn Fire, which is believed to be human-caused, has been tamed by a recent forest-thinning project that have been opposed by some environmental groups.
And while the Golden State is immersed in its third straight year of severe drought, a few storms in April and June helped to dampen fire fuels. A thunderstorm system sparked some blazes in Southern California last month, but the state averted any major lightning-started fires.
A “huge ridge of high pressure” responsible for recent record-breaking heat in Texas will soon expand west, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said Friday in a Twitter thread, likely impacting interior California and potentially causing a shift in wildfire activity.
“The combination of widespread hotter-than-usual conditions and a depressed monsoon over the next (roughly) 2 weeks will likely accelerate fire season across drought-stricken interior western forests, including the Sierra Nevada,” Swain wrote.
Recent history and climate trends suggest many of California’s biggest and most devastating infernos are prone to start in August or later.
When a record-smashing 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, nearly half that total – 1.9 million acres – burned in a quartet of fires that ignited within a four-day stretch in mid-August, touched off by an immense lightning storm across Northern California and the Bay Area.
Another 2.6 million acres followed in 2021, with some 2.5 million of those acres burning after mid-July.
Cal Fire data show that 14 of the 20 biggest wildfires in the state’s recorded history, and 15 of the 20 most destructive, have come since 2012. Nine of the 14 largest have started in August or later, as well as 13 of the 15 most destructive – all but the Carr Fire in July 2018 and last July’s Dixie Fire, which grew to 963,000 acres and became the largest single fire ever observed in California.
Late summer, early fall and sometimes even the winter months generally bring the most dangerous combination of hot, dry weather and powerful gusts. Those gusts are known in Southern California as Santa Ana winds, and in the Bay Area and Northern California as Diablo or devil winds.
By this time last year, 17 wildfires had started in California that ultimately grew beyond 1,000 acres, according to Cal Fire’s incident summary for 2021, including six that went on to exceed 10,000 acres.
Cal Fire as of Monday had reported only four incidents above 1,000 acres and none above 6,000: the Lost Lake Fire in Riverside County, which started in late May (5,856 acres); the Electra Fire in Amador and Calaveras counties, which sparked July 4 and is now 99% contained (4,478 acres); the Airport Fire in Inyo County from mid-February (4,136 acres); and Kern County’s Thunder Fire in June (2,500 acres).
A fifth fire above that threshold, the ongoing Washburn Fire at Yosemite, which is being fought by federal agencies and not Cal Fire, has torched close to 4,900 acres since igniting July 7, according to the latest incident reports. It is 58% contained.
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