Forest Service, along with other agencies have attacked them with large numbers of aircraft and firefighters. When fires have started, the state’s main firefighting agency, Cal Fire, and the U.S. “But it’s too early for the state to be patting itself on the back. “It’s been a lucky confluence of events,” said meteorologist Jan Null, with Golden Gate Weather Services in Half Moon Bay. So far this year, the lightning hasn’t arrived. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)Ī similar wave of dry lightning in August 2020 sparked ferocious blazes that leveled more than 5,000 structures from the Santa Cruz Mountains to Wine Country to the Diablo Range east of San Jose, and killed more than 25 people. MARIPOSA, CALIFORNIA – JULY 23: A firefighter from San Luis Obispo maintains a perimeter watch around a burning shed while protecting homes on Triangle Road in Mariposa, Calif., as the Oak Fire rages near Yosemite Park, Saturday, July 23, 2022. Arnold Schwarzenegger called in National Guard troops to help, and firefighters from Greece, Cyprus, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Mexico and New Zealand fought the blazes. That year, by July 5, there were 328 wildfires burning at the same time. Such storms set off hundreds of fires in 2008. Although the state had several heat waves in March and early April, in recent weeks a trough of low pressure off the West Coast kept California’s temperatures down while high-pressure ridges in other parts of the country caused record heat waves from Texas to the East Coast.Īnd there haven’t been freak dry lightning storms. Not enough to break the drought or fill reservoirs, but enough to increase soil moisture and boost moisture levels in grasses, plants and shrubs.Īdd to that, the first three weeks of July were cooler than normal in California. The Northern Sierra received just 11% of normal precipitation for those first three months, then got 6.1 inches in April - twice as much as the previous three months combined, and well above the historical April average of 4.3 inches. The reasons for the mild start to the 2022 fire season?įollowing a record-dry January, February and March, a fair amount of rain and snow fell in April. Joseph’s Catholic Church, where it has stood on a bluff in Mariposa, Calif., for the past 160 years. MARIPOSA, CALIFORNIA – JULY 23: A pyrocumulus cloud from the Oak Fire rises Saturday, July 23, 2022, behind St. And no old-growth giant sequoias were killed. More than 1,300 firefighters, aided by 50 years of controlled burns in the famed giant sequoia grove that helped moderate the flames, saved the day. Sunday it was 79% contained, having burned 4,857 acres. Until this weekend, the largest fire of the year in California had been the relatively small Washburn Fire, which began July 7 near the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite. Police closed Highway 140 and massive columns of smoke poured off the landscape in what had become the most ominous fire of the year so far. Flames had burned at least 10 homes and other structures in the Midpines area as residents evacuated.

There are still a lot of dry months to come.”īy Sunday, the Oak Fire had grown to 14,281 acres with 0% containment. “If this was a baseball game, we are in the middle innings. “People shouldn’t get complacent,” said Isaac Sanchez, a battalion chief with Cal Fire. Add to that, significant rain doesn’t fall most years in California until October or November. Millions of dead trees and brush remain ripe to burn, from the Sierra to the Bay Area, the Santa Cruz Mountains to Southern California. Climate change is making heat waves hotter. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)Ĭalifornia has struggled with drought over eight of the last 11 years. MARIPOSA, CALIFORNIA – JULY 22: A deer flees the Oak Fire burning west of Yosemite Park on Triangle Road in Mariposa, Calif., Friday, July 22, 2022.

California wildfires