The unusual fall thunderstorm that soaked local mountains, coming on the heels of a very wet winter that followed five years of drought, means there is an “enormous amount of fuel in the hills,” says local fire inspector.
By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
Unusually early winter rains, coupled by weak Santa Ana winds, have local and state fire officials crossing their fingers that the 2005 Malibu-area fire season will go down in the books as a mild one.
The fire index in the brush lands of the Santa Monica Mountains stands at 75 this week, and anything below 60 is critical. A fire official said that means the local wild lands are still able to burn but are not nearly as dry as in recent years past.
But as the 3,700-acre fire last weekend above Ventura showed, fire season is not over in Southern California. Nearly 100 Los Angeles County firefighters were sent to battle the weekend Ventura fire, 35 miles up the coast from Malibu.
That blaze started in the oil fields north of Ventura, and was lapping at the edges of the city within two hours, witnesses said. It was largely contained Monday morning.
Early autumn rains prompted the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection last week to declare the fire season over in northern and central parts of the state.
“That allows us to move some of our resources down to Southern California, where we consider the fire danger to still be high,” said CDF spokesman Michael Jarvis in Sacramento.
A meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard said the Malibu area has largely been shielded from Santa Ana winds this autumn because they have been relatively weak, and blowing from the northeast.
“We haven’t noticed any really big blows,” said NWS science officer David Danielson in Oxnard. “The Santa Ana winds have preferred paths, and when they come from the northeast, they tend to blow down the valleys towards Ventura, but are blocked by the Santa Monica Mountains from hitting Malibu,” he said.
“It’s only when they’re really strong from the north that they come over the mountains and affect Malibu,” he said.
Danielson said the fire danger could vary in the local area depending on the exact local topography.
“On north-facing slopes, it is markedly cooler and moister than on south-facing slopes, which catch the sun,” Danielson said. “Especially now, when the Santa Anas have been persistent but not strong, that can make a huge difference in how dry it is in any particular area.”
Los Angeles County fire inspector John Mancha said the 75 rating on the brush fire index in the Santa Monica Mountains “shows it can still burn readily, but is not as susceptible to fire storm conditions as when the index drops below 60.”
Mancha noted that the unusual October thunderstorm that soaked the mountains with as much as two inches of rain “comes on the heels of a very wet winter, and that followed five years of drought. That means there is an enormous amount of fuel in the hills.”
Fire season along the Malibu coast has usually ended around New Year’s Day, but the 2003 Pacific fire at Trancas was in the middle of the winter rainy season.
“People have to be very cautious of when they call an end to the fire season,” Danielson said. “Both of our very driest years had above rainfall in November.
You can’t judge the way the winter will go based on what happens in the fall.