While California started the year inundated with an unrelenting series of storms and high winds, the state is now at its highest risk for wildfires, officials say.
A weather system has areas of Northern California facing high risk of lightning activity Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. That comes as temperatures in the area have been well above normal for some time, potentially making some wild grasses and shrubs more prone to catch fire.
The area is not quite the tinderbox it has been in previous years, thanks to the snows of earlier this year keeping vegetation in the upper Sierra Nevada well moistened. But lower levels are drier—and will likely be getting even more so in the near future, meaning the current risk is likely not the last.
Fears about the 2023 fire season were already running high as explosive plant growth from the winter moisture will soon dry out, making the wildflowers and grass potential kindling. (The state has even brought in goats to help clear out some of the brush.)
“What we expect to see out of the rains is an increase in the amount of fuel there is to burn,” said Isaac Sanchez, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.
Wet winters have brought about historic fires in the past, including the Camp Fire that tore through the state’s wine region. The winter of 2016–2017 brought much of the state 30% to 50% more snow and rain than average. Blazes across the state burned 1.5 million acres in 2017, more than double the year before.
The warning of an increased fire risk also comes as people see images from Hawaii come in, showing the widespread devastation from that island’s recent fires, which have killed at least 96 people and razed historic towns on Maui.