Deepening Drought Holds ‘Ominous’ Signs For Wildfire Threat In The West
By Eric Westervelt
May 6, 2021
After one of the most destructive and extreme wildfire seasons in modern history last year, a widening drought across California and much of the West has many residents bracing for the possibility this season could be worse.
Anemic winter rain and snowfall has left reservoirs and river flows down significantly, even as the state experiences its driest water year in more than four decades. Today, wildfire fuels in some parts of California are at or near record levels of dryness.
Fuel moisture the amount of water inside a living plant “is the lowest that we’ve recorded at these sites since 2013,” says Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University. “It’s indicative of very dangerous conditions coming into this summer.”
A giant sequoia 250-foot tall is still smoldering and smoking in Sequoia National Park that was burned during one of California s catastrophic wildfires last year.
Fire management says the tree is still exhibiting the effects of the 2020 Castle Fire due to low snowfall and rain this year.
The fire was sparked from a lightning strike on on August 19, 2020, which then grew and spread throughout the region - burning an estimated 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) of forest as of December.
The burning sequoia, which is 13 feet in diameter, is isolated and does not present a danger to its environment or park visitors, according to the park service.
Extreme wildfire threat forecast for Northern California this summer pressdemocrat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pressdemocrat.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For the first time ever, Clements said, his team had found no new growth sprouting on the shrubs that cover the chaparral landscape in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the researchers usually collect clippings to test fuel-moisture content.
April is typically when the live chaparral has the highest moisture content. With levels so low, they are far more prone to burning and will dry or die much earlier in the season.
âI am not totally freaking out,â Clements said. âBut it could be bad. It depends on how hot the summer is, but the drought is really going to be playing a role with these fuels.â
Wildfire Researchers Forecast 2021 Fire Season That May Be More Severe Than 2020
Firefighters perform structure protection against the Glass Fire in Napa County on October 1, 2020, in Calistoga, California.
Kent Nishimura / Getty Images
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Earlier this April, researchers at San José State University’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center in Northern California were gathering chamise at Blackberry Hill, a site in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. In the past few years, it was a site that they had revisited to gather samples of the native shrub. While surveying the land at the site, the researchers made a disconcerting discovery: new, green growth was nowhere to be found.