California no longer has fire seasons, it’s a fire year. Over the last couple of weeks, there has been an uptick in fires across the state.
“Every year we are always going to have an annual grass crop, it always gets green, really beautiful then it turns brown, so the more rain we have, it sets us up for a potentially bad fire season,” said Josh Taylor, deputy chief with CAL FIRE SLO.
Taylor says California's fire season used to be from May to November but that is no longer the case.
“With the droughts we’ve had, the fuels have never recovered so once it's dead, it doesn’t come back because dead fuel is dead fuel so it will always be there regardless of how much rain we have,” Taylor said.
The Mountain Fire in Ventura County is one of the biggest fires in the state right now. It burned more than 20,000 acres in about two days.
San Luis Obispo County fire departments, including those from Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Paso Robles and CAL FIRE, sent crews to help out.
When major fires break out, Taylor says his department is prepared.
“The resources move up and down the state in order of where the priorities are,” Taylor said.
It doesn’t leave a void locally. Taylor says they rotate engines and back-fill as needed so the county stays equipped.
CAL FIRE SLO PIO Toni Davis explains that fires can start unintentionally with the majority starting along the side of the road.
“Just by dragging a chain, you didn’t tighten up your security chain and you’re driving down the highway or your vehicle is just not properly working, catalytic converters can cause a fire if they’re not working properly, and when you pull over in dry vegetation,” Davis said.
Davis says to make sure to mow and weed wack high vegetation to help prevent fires.
“Make sure you’re doing everything you can to save us from potentially having a large wildland fire here in SLO County,” Davis said.
CAL FIRE officials say this year is drier than the past two years so they will increase their staff until Dec. 15.
