NorCal braces for dry, dangerous fire season as SoCal faces typical conditions

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Southern California’s top fire officials met behind closed doors in East Los Angeles Friday to discuss the outlook for this year’s peak fire season and how to coordinate the region’s world-class firefighters to keep communities safe.At a press conference afterward, officials stressed that even though coastal Southern California is not expected to have an exceptionally dangerous fire season, they are doing everything they can to protect Californians.They urged residents to do the same.“It is clear that wildfires are no longer solely a fire-service problem.

They are an all-of-us problem,” said Orange County Fire Authority Interim Chief T.J.McGovern, standing in front of a suite of emergency response vehicles at L.A.

County Fire Department’s headquarters.“They can only be mitigated by all of us working together.” Climate & Environment State and federal fire officials have unveiled a new plan to boost wildfire prevention, even as California funding sources are drying up.Coastal Southern California, which had the third-wettest season in record within the last 15 years, can expect a typical wildfire season, fire weather analysts predict.

That’s in sharp contrast to Northern California, which saw a record-breaking March heat wave melt mountain snowpack early.Fire officials typically rely on the snowpack to keep vegetation green and moist into summer.“The interesting thing about last year is that it was the southern half of the state that was significantly drier,” said Cal Fire Director Joe Tyler at a wildfire season outlook briefing last month.

This year, he said, “we’re seeing that critical condition really spreading across Northern California.”Coastal Southern California must still endure a particularly dry June before reaching typical conditions July through September — and even “typical” conditions remain dangerous, which is why officials urge...