Winter Rains Raise Wildfire Risk

After wildfires blackened hard-to-reach mountain areas of Riverside and Kern counties, Southern California fire officials on Friday said they expected a volatile fire season this year because of the excessive brush growth that followed the region’s near-record rainfall.

“The fire danger is already extremely high, and it will be even greater from August through October,” said Tracey Martinez, San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman.

“Weather forecasters are telling us it will be extremely hot this summer, and the Santa Ana winds we’ll get will spread fire across these areas of new [brush] growth even faster than the fires we’ve seen in the last week.”

In Riverside County, a 300-acre wildfire near Cabazon ignited about 7:30 p.m. Thursday south of Interstate 10. The 250 firefighters battling the blaze had it 70% contained Friday evening. Firefighting aircraft were grounded because of high winds, said Riverside County Fire Capt. Rick Vogt.

No homes were immediately threatened, and the cause is under investigation. The blaze burned tall grass and brush on steep mountain slopes, Vogt said.

“We’ve seen enormous grass and vegetation growth in our county,” Vogt said. “Now, we have the new crop of tall grass and brush in areas where there’s dead brush and trees in the higher elevations from the previous years’ drought.”

A wind-driven brush fire near Tehachapi in Kern County scorched 800 acres before it was contained early Friday, fire officials said. No homes were destroyed, although some in Sand Canyon had been threatened, Kern County fire officials said.

Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ed Osorio said the new growth has made the Santa Clarita Valley, the Malibu Canyon area and neighborhoods in San Dimas and Claremont especially vulnerable.

“No matter how bad the conditions in the hillsides near your home, if you clear the area immediately around where you live, you’ll give us a fighting chance [to defend the home],” Osorio said.

In the early fall of 2003, a string of Southern California wildfires scorched more than 738,000 acres, destroyed more than 3,600 homes, killed 25 people and cost $142 million to fight.

Mountainsides blackened by the 2003 Old and Grand Prix fires in San Bernardino County have turned green with new vegetation after the rains. Because of that, the fire danger remains high throughout the burned areas -- particularly the San Bernardino Mountain communities around Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake, Martinez said.

“The mountain areas are still very ripe and susceptible to a major fire,” Martinez said. “There is still a lot of areas around the burned areas that never burned. Then there are areas, like around Yucaipa, which are full of new brush and haven’t been burned in 50 years.”