From the CAL FIRE Information Center, I’m Scott McLean with the CAL FIRE Report for Tuesday, September 3, 2019.
From thunderstorms to a holiday weekend of hot, dry weather, last week brought a steady flow of challenges to California’s firefighters. And with those challenges came a noticeable uptick in fire activity. You can see from our statewide fire stats and there were 277 new fires last week, with 185 of those started within CAL FIRE’s jurisdiction.But once again thanks to the aggressive initial attack by firefighters, the majority of those fires were kept well under 10 acres. You can see on our statewide fire map that CAL FIRE firefighters are currently involved in 5 active significant wildfires, 3 of which are CAL FIRE incidents.
We’ll take a closer look at those CAL FIRE incidents now, starting with the Antelope Fire in San Benito County. The Antelope Fire started yesterday afternoon in the community of Paicines and quickly grew to 167 acres. Firefighters have the Antelope Fire 40% contained as of this morning.
Next, another fire that started yesterday, this one in San Bernardino County. The Telephone Fire sparked off of Old Dump Road in Hesperia just before 5 PM. The Telephone Fire has grown to 10 acres, but firefighters have stopped the forward rate of spread, so no further growth is expected on that fire.
Moving on to Tulare County where firefighters are battling the Creek Fire which started earlier this weekend, on Saturday, east of Woodlake. The Creek Fire is 756 acres and firefighters have it 85% contained. Firefighters continue to reinforce and build containment line around the fire and are working to safely achieve 100% containment on the Creek Fire as soon as possible.
And finally, in Monterey County, on Sunday firefighters battled the Jolon Fire in Lockwood. The Jolon Fire grew to 66 acres before being fully contained yesterday. So some very good news there.
But also some bad news from last week – on Sunday afternoon, 3 Firefighters battling a wildfire in Monterey County called the Thorne Fire suffered minor burn injuries and were transported to area hospitals. All 3 have since been released and all of us at CAL FIRE are hoping for a speedy recovery for the 3 injured firefighters.
Now, switching over to our fire weather headlines for the coming week, we’re looking at another high fire danger event right around the corner with another round of lightning expected on Wednesday and into Thursday across many areas in Northern California, as well as in the desert and mountains of Southern California.
But as we head toward the weekend, we could see a little relief from the heat as temperatures are expected to drop below seasonal normal across the state.
With all that in mind, we wanted to talk briefly about Critical Fire Weather. If you follow our social media channels, you’ve no doubt heard about Red Flag Warning and Fire Weather Watch days. But what does all that mean to you as far as fire activity goes? A Red Flag Warning typically means that there is a high fire danger event expected, be it lightning like we’re expecting this week, or something like high winds and low humidity. Whatever the cause, it means that the chances of new fires sparking will be greatly elevated due to weather conditions, and any fires that do start will grow very rapidly. Wildfire starts are unpredictable, so a Red Flag Warning doesn’t necessarily mean there WILL be a fire, but if one does start, it has the potential to become a major threat.
So what about Fire Weather Watches? A Fire Weather Watch is a warning of sorts that means that there’s a high chance of a Red Flag Warning being issued in an area, but the forecast isn’t clear enough for it to yet be a Red Flag Warning.
So what does all this mean for Californians? It means that when you hear about Critical Fire Weather, whether it’s a Red Flag Warning or a Fire Weather Watch, you need to be ready to Go. That means having your Emergency Kit staged and ready to load quickly into your vehicle, being ready to move on your pet evacuation plan, and most importantly making sure you family knows what to do and where to go in the event of a wildfire. During Critical Fire Weather, you may have even less time to evacuate, so you need to have everything lined up to get everybody out safely and as quickly as possible.
For more on how you can be ready to Go during Critical Fire Weather, or really any time of the year, visit our website at ReadyForWildfire.org.
And that’s the latest on the Fire Situation in California. I’m Scott McLean. Stay safe.
Source: CAL FIRE
