Cal Fire, Forest Service ready for fire dangers after driest January on record
03 February 2022
Published by https://www.uniondemocrat.com/
USA – Firefighters with the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit and the Stanislaus National Forest are on guard for uncommon February fire dangers in the wake of the Central Sierra’s driest January on record, commanders with Cal Fire and the Forest Service said Monday.
The Stanislaus River and Tuolumne River watersheds and the rest of the Central Sierra region received zero — 0.0 inches — precipitation in January 2022, making it the driest January on record since 1913, according to the state Department of Water Resources, Division of Flood Management, Hydrology Branch.
“Normally during February we have very few fires,” Charlie Blankenheim, Cal Fire’s TCU deputy chief, said Monday in a phone interview. “Because it is dry and we’re going to get wind events, including tomorrow, there’s always concern about fire dangers. We’re definitely rooting for more rain.”
There are wind advisories and high wind watches Tuesday and Wednesday west of the Mother Lode for the Central Valley and the Bay Area, with lighter winds expected from 5 to 15 miles per hour from San Andreas to Sonora, according to the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. meteorologists were anticipating a significant wind event starting overnight Monday into Tuesday, lasting to Wednesday. No imposed blackouts — which the utility calls public safety power shutoffs — were anticipated, but PG&E customers should be prepared for potential outages, Megan McFarland with PG&E said in an announcement Monday afternoon.
The Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit has four wildland engines staffed every day all winter, Blankenheim said.
“We monitor the weather real close, and if we have a fire with too much wind we have the ability to call in more engines from Cal Fire cooperators,” Blankenheim said. “If it’s a real windy day we can get more engines from our local partners and partners outside the unit, including Mariposa.”
Cal Fire TCU has a helicopter staffed three to four days a week at Columbia Air Attack, and the other days the helicopter is based at Monterey, a half-hour to 45 minutes from Columbia by air.
“Because most of the grass and vegetation is green right now, we don’t have a huge concern for fires getting large,” Blankenheim said. “We do have potential for escaped burns — controlled burns, and pile burns. We hope that anybody doing pile burning is doing it responsibly and taking all the precautions and watching the weather. Avoid burning on windy days.”
As of Monday, the Stanislaus National Forest had two interagency hotshot crews with 20 firefighters on each crew; three Type 3 engines with five firefighters per engine crew; one 10-person hand crew; and two bulldozers, all assigned to the forest, Benjamin Cossel, a spokesman for the federally-managed forest based in Sonora, said Monday.
“With cooperative agreements we have through Cal OES,” Cossel said, “we have the ability to call for additional resources if necessary.”
January was dry in the Stanislaus National Forest, and the Forest Service expects February to be dry, Cossel said.
We’re looking, we’re hopeful, that March will bring more precipitation,” Cossel said. “But that remains to be seen. We’re one hundred percent concerned about fire dangers. Suppression is always our top priority.”
To reduce fire dangers last month, firefighters and burn bosses did prescribed fires on 678 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest, Cossel said, and 2,800 acres of prescribed fires from October through December.
“Bottom line is obviously we are extremely hopeful we will not see as catastrophic a fire year this year, as we did in 2021,” Cossel said. “The Forest Service is constantly training and equipping our firefighters to cope with whatever happens immediately in our forest.”
Beck Johnson, fire management officer for the Stanislaus National Forest, referred questions Monday to Cossel.
The record-setting wet start to the current winter that chilled, soaked, and snowed on the Mother Lode and the rest of the Central Sierra in December is a month-old memory now because January was the driest for the region in more than a century.
The driest previous January months on record for the Central Sierra were January 2015 with 0.20 inch, and January 1989 with 0.19 inch.
The state’s 109-year-old records for the Central Sierra show nine other winter months with 0.0 inches of precipitation: November 1929, October 1954, November 1959, October 1966, October 1978, December 1989, December 2011, October 2019, and October 2020.
The wet start to winter, with major storms in October and December, brought 20.2 inches of precipitation to the Central Sierra region between Oct.1 and Jan. 1. That wet start means the region is still above average so far this winter and for the current water year, with 102% of average for the date Jan. 31.
Contact Guy McCarthy at gmccarthy@uniondemocrat.net or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on Twitter at @GuyMcCarthy.
