It's been an amazing start to the rainfall season, one that's eased the wildfire threat in the Tri-Counties.
In Ventura County, Thousand Oaks has received 340% of normal rainfall to date, Ojai is near 400%, and Ventura has received a whopping 500%.
So, that means an end to high wildfire season, right? For Ventura County, the answer is yes, as of Thursday. Santa Barbara County remains in high fire season, but it's expected to drop out of it in the next few days.
During peak danger times, fire agencies beef up staffing to try to stop a small brush fire before it becomes a major wildfire.
"The main difference between a declared high fire season and not a declared high fire season is the number of fire engines we send to the initial report of a brush fire," said Andrew Dowd, with the Ventura County Fire Department. "When we're in high fire season, we'll send 75 to 100 firefighters in the initial response. We'll send six fire engines and two helicopters, two hand crews, and dozer operators (bulldozer operators). When we're out of a declared high fire season, we'll just send one fire engine. It's a more conservative approach to resource management when there's a low likelihood of a significant fire."
Fire season is now considered to be year-round in California, with the potential for wildfires extending well into the rainy season. We’ve had some big examples in the past year, including Ventura County's Mountain Fire last November, and January’s Palisades and Eaton Fires.
Dowd discussed the factors firefighters monitor to assess wildfire risk.
"The quantity of rain that we receive will affect things like soil moisture, fuel moisture, and the ability and probability of ignition, just how quickly the fire will start, and the specific fuel bed. Really, it's the predictability of how quickly and easily will the fire start? How quickly will it spread?"
While the rain is literally dampening the wildfire threat for now, if nature turns off the spigot for several weeks, and we get Santa Ana winds, Ventura County could return to high fire season staffing, with increased responses to calls.
"Right now, we've received a significant amount of rain. Let's just presume for the next few months we didn't, and we saw a number of wind events. We simply move back into a high fire season," noted Dowd. "It's not likely, but it's possible."
Dowd added that the rain prompts the fire department to adjust its staffing to potentially deal with a different set of issues.
"When we have potential flooding, and we are on floodwatch, we staff additional hand crews, we staff an additional swift water (rescue) team, we'll staff additional helicopter team members, and additional firefighters on patrols so that we can be prepared to respond to a flooding situation. We saw that last week. We had up to 80 firefighters staffed during the potential flood emergency."
The heavy rain this month is a great start, added Dowd, but it will take periodic rain over the next few months to keep the region from returning to a high fire season. And Ventura County firefighters still have to deal with a myriad of other types of emergency calls.
"We still respond to hundreds of calls a day. Structure fires, traffic collisions, people who go into cardiac arrest, all kinds of medical emergencies. It is always good news that the risk of wildfires may be diminished for some time, but we're also still here, day in and day out, running calls and responding to emergencies," said Dowd.
