A Furious Start to California’s Fire Season

So far this year, 3,543 wildfires have broken out in California. While that’s a big number, it’s in line with recent experience: In the previous five years, an average of 3,659 wildfires had erupted by July 10.

What’s unusual and worrisome this year is the size of the blazes. As of Wednesday, more than 207,000 acres have burned across the state, compared with the five-year average of 38,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.

“We’re already experiencing a disproportionately high number of acres burned,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference yesterday. “We’re seeing, unsurprisingly, predictably, because of the rains — those late rains in particular — a lot of grasses turning into brush fires.”

Two wet winters in a row have helped pull the state out of a terrible drought. But those heavy rains also promoted the growth of grass, brush and other vegetation that is now drying out and becoming highly flammable, especially during the current record-breaking heat wave.

So when a fire erupts, it’s able to spread rapidly through vegetation that is primed to burn, Joe Tyler, Cal Fire’s director, said at the news conference. “We need to be extra cautious in these hot, dry and windy conditions,” he said.

My colleague Austyn Gaffney wrote about how overnight heat in particular was making some of these recent fires difficult to extinguish.

Fires usually quiet down a bit at night as the air gets cooler and the relative humidity rises. But in the heat wave, overnight temperatures have been unusually high, leaving us without this natural damper.

The largest fire currently burning in California is the Lake fire in the mountains above the Santa Ynez Valley, which has grown to about 29,000 acres since it ignited on Friday. That fire has swelled significantly after dark, growing by 5,000 acres on Monday night and by 2,000 on Tuesday night, Austyn reported. It was only 16 percent contained as of yesterday evening.

California’s third-largest current fire, the Shelly fire in the Klamath National Forest near the Oregon border, began on July 3 and was not at all contained as of yesterday evening.

“The recoveries at night are not coming up,” John Chester, the operations section chief for the California Interagency Incident Management Team overseeing the Shelly fire, said in a briefing. Nighttime temperatures in that region would ordinarily fall to the mid-50s in July, but over the last few days, they have stayed in the 70s and 60s for most of the night.

For more:

• Large parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah were under excessive heat warnings yesterday, indicating “extremely dangerous heat conditions.”

• Here are the best wildfire preparedness supplies and strategies.

The rest of the news

• Restaurant franchisees are cutting their employees’ hours in response to the state’s new $20 hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers, The Associated Press reports. Experts told the news outlet that it was still too early to assess the new law’s longer-term effects.

• Gov. Gavin Newsom reaffirmed a pledge not to challenge Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination if President Biden withdraws, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Southern California

• Seven artists with connections to Los Angeles have created artworks to adorn the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Clippers, which is scheduled to open next month.

• L.A. County will pay $17.2 million to a family injured in 2020 after a sheriff’s deputy hit their car while driving twice the speed limit, The Los Angeles Times reports. The Sheriff’s Department told the news outlet that it was “actively working to increase” training for deputies, including better driving.

• A judge in Los Angeles is scheduled to decide Thursday on restitution for the families of 34 people who were killed in a fire on a scuba dive boat off the Southern California coast in September 2019, the deadliest U.S. maritime accident in recent years, The Associated Press reports.

Central California

• The California Energy Commission approved a plan to install offshore wind turbines along the Central Coast, as part of a larger move toward clean energy, CalMatters reports.

Northern California

• A new report from BART reveals that it is on the brink of a fiscal crisis that could threaten the system’s future, as ridership has declined with population shifts since the pandemic, ABC7 Bay Area reports.

• The author Amy Tan took inspiration from the birds that flocked to her backyard in Sausalito as she wrote her newest book, “The Backyard Bird Chronicles.”

And before you go, some good news

The Michelin Guide on Wednesday added 13 restaurants to its list of best California restaurants, including ones in Healdsburg, La Jolla and Santa Barbara.

Warning: These picks will make you hungry.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.

Halina Bennet and Luke Caramanico contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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