Here's what the rain means for Southern California's fire season

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Set us as preferred The string of El Niño-fueled storms that have closed roads, crumbled boardwalks and eroded beaches in Southern California in the summer and fall may have also brought a silver lining: a potential end in sight to the region’s fire season, experts say.Just a week after a 570-acre fire spread to hillside communities in Orange County, rains that arrived Wednesday could help extinguish what chance remained of another large, destructive blaze taking off in Southern California anytime soon, said Matt Shameson, a meteorologist with the U.S.Forest Service.Across much of the Inland Empire and San Diego and Orange counties, where 1 to 3 inches of rain already fell from the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel this month, this week’s storms will probably quell the risk of large fires for the remainder of the fall, he said.But in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, most of which got less than a tenth of an inch from Rachel, it will take another round of rains to put an end to the risk for the rest of the season, he said.

Light vegetation including grass and brush can cure and turn to fire-ready tinder in short order under the right conditions, particularly during hot, dry Santa Ana winds, but that’s unlikely to happen before another rain event, Shameson said.To boot, Santa Ana winds forecast for Friday into Saturday aren’t expected to be very strong or widespread, he added.Southern California’s fire season typically peaks in July and August, when each day averages a roughly 22% chance of significant fire, Shameson said.

By October, that drops to a roughly 5% chance.“Basically, once you get to the middle of September, you need a Santa Ana wind event to get large fire activity,” he said.Recent history shows what happens when Santa Ana winds mix with a late-season fire.There was the Norte fire last week that ...