SANTA ROSA – Although it has been years since devastating wildfires ravaged the North Bay and Wine Country, leaving communities in ruins, the threat and feelings associated with fire season are always at the top of the agenda as summer approaches stands.
“During this past fire season we had evacuees in our home, we have family that lost a home. We are very familiar with fire season,” said Stacy Wallace.
As of this week, the Santa Rosa Fire Department has officially declared fire season here.
“This is the time of year when we would normally be looking at gloom in June. That’s certainly not the case at the moment. Temperatures have certainly risen, winds have also risen and humidity has dropped. For us, that’s certainly a concern given how dry our seasonal grasses are,” said Paul Lowenthal, division chief fire marshal “One of the things about this weekend is that the temperatures will certainly not be as hot as before, but it will be very dry and very windy. “That could be a little misleading for people. We definitely expect a lot of people to be outside.”
There is a lot of fuel for grass fires at the moment thanks to a wet first half of the year.
“We’ve had some grass fires here and there. It’s definitely interesting to see how well the fuels are essentially burning at this point in the season. We expected that – with the amount of rain we had and how thick the grasses were growing – – and how quickly they dried out,” Lowenthal said. “Fortunately, that rain certainly benefits our heavier fuels – our brush and timber – which still have that fuel moisture in them. So it doesn’t make them as susceptible to burning as the grass is at the moment. But the Grasses are definitely the concern this weekend.”
As summer progresses, Lowenthal says areas that have burned in previous years have the potential to burn again.
“Many of the areas that have burned have the potential to burn again. I understand that some of the most recent fires up north in Lake and Mendocino County have burned some of the old fire scars and that is really our concern here. In Sonoma County, we have many areas that have clearly experienced significant fire history over the last seven years. But those areas have certainly grown back and undergone many changes in fuels, and in some cases fuel conditions are worse today. they were in 2017,” he explained.
Lowenthal urges people to take fire prevention measures such as clearing brush and creating defensible space around their properties.
Wallace said her family has go-bags and a plan, as they have lived through many fire seasons in Santa Rosa.
“We have to pay attention,” she said. “It’s going to be a crazy season, I think.”
