Bone Dry Weather Spurs Earliest Fire Season in Memory

State fire officials, alarmed by unusually arid weather conditions that are rapidly turning forest and brushland into kindling, have declared that Southern California’s fire season will officially begin Monday, the earliest such date in memory.

“This fire season is more than a month earlier than normal,” said Mike Harris, a deputy chief in the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s southern regional office. “If the weather pattern holds throughout the summer like it has early this year, it could be a real devastating fire season.”

To combat the threat, officials overseeing the 10-county region stretching from Santa Barbara south to San Diego will begin hiring seasonal firefighters Monday to help staff wilderness fire stations around the clock.

Promoting Fire Safety

Meanwhile, Los Angeles city fire officials began their own program of promoting fire safety Friday by mailing out fire preparedness notices to 120,000 property owners in the city’s hillside neighborhoods.

Fire Inspector Ed Reed said an official declaration of the city’s brush fire season may be made within a week--more than three months earlier than in most years.

As with state officials, Reed, a 30-year firefighter, has no recollection of similar fire warnings ever before being issued so early in the year.

“It kind of puts a little fear in you,” Reed said. “If we declare it in April, that means a long, rough road ahead for residents and firefighters.”

Experts say that warm, dry air, combined with swift Santa Ana winds, is largely responsible for an early withering of vegetation in the region’s hills and canyons.

Since Jan. 1, less than four inches of rain has fallen on Los Angeles--less than half the norm. And by now, authorities say, the moisture level in the region’s vegetation is dipping to a critical level.

“We had early rains that started about Thanksgiving and got a good crop of grass growing (in hills and canyons), but that kind of petered out,” said John Haggemiller, senior deputy forester for the county’s forestry division. “The grass that was growing is browning out.

‘Much More Intense Fire’

“If you get a fire under normal conditions, the green vegetation tends to slow it down. But when fire moves into brush that has dead material, you have a much more intense fire.”

Exacerbating the situation is a mysterious “die-back” that has been attacking brush on Southern California mountainsides for the last three years. The condition, caused in part by a fungus that results in plant blight, has killed up to 50% of the brush in hilly areas including Malibu and Newhall, Haggemiller said.

“Add the factors together and the (dead vegetation) acts as a wick,” Haggemiller said.

At this point, no major brush fires have broken out in the Los Angeles region. But officials are warning residents of threatened areas to take precautions.

The notice mailed Friday by city fire authorities requests that property owners trim the brush within 100 feet of their homes to a level of 3 to 18 inches. “That gives firefighters an area of protection around the home,” Reed said.

State officials also ask that driveways in woody areas be cleared to a width that would allow access by a fire engine.

Ironically, as Southland residents prepare for what weather forecasters predict will be a pleasant holiday weekend, fire officials prepare for the worst.

Dry, mild air with above-normal temperatures in the high 70s are expected in Los Angeles today and Sunday, said Dan Bowman of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“It makes for beautiful weather, agreed Reed, a 30-year firefighter, “but it also makes for very serious brush hazards.

“I love the weather like this, but I do get a little nervous. There’s a voice in the back of my head saying that there’s a good possibility that the Fire Department will be very busy, very shortly.”