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Wildfires Rising In California As Drought Situations Worsen – CBS San Francisco

SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS (CBS SF / AP) – Drought conditions in California are worsening, and state officials fear wildfires could wreak more damage than last year when the complex fires burned 4% of the state – record damage.

The danger prompted Governor Gavin Newsom this week to urge the state to spend a record $ 2 billion on fighting forest fires. That is twice as much as he suggested in January.

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“We are very clear that we need to step up our efforts here in the state of California, and that is exactly what we started earlier this year,” he said on Monday.

Above-average wildfire potential is expected in the mountains and foothills of California from June through August and possibly into fall, which is the usual main fire season, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center and the Southwest Coordination Center.

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While some parts of the Southwest experienced cool and humid conditions last month, California did not, said Chuck Maxwell, meteorologist and predictive services manager at the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which measures conditions, 94% of California has drought conditions that range from moderate to exceptional.

This year’s fires have burned almost five times as much area as last year at that time. But the 62 square kilometers drawn by about 2,600 fires this year is a small fraction of the total of nearly 10,000 fires last year, and an astronomical 17,231 square kilometers were burned. The fires killed 33 people and burned more than 10,000 houses and other buildings.

In the Bay Area alone, Northern California’s 2020 historic fire season burned more than two million acres – 3,125 square miles – almost three times the size of Chicago, Manhattan and Los Angeles combined.

Last year’s epic fire season lasted so long that it slowed Cal Fire’s attempts to make their own fires – the mandatory burns they increasingly want to include in their long-term endeavors. By April 30th, they were able to deliberately burn 44 square kilometers, a 40% decrease from the previous year.

“Even a dry winter would have allowed the mandatory burns, but officials got off to a late start due to the extreme fire activity in the second half of last year,” said Christine McMorrow, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Safety.

“Mandatory burns are a big part of our strategy,” said Newsom, who added $ 50 million to its proposed budget for them.

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Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter called them “our best, most affordable tool” for clearing both overgrown areas and invasive alien plants. But he warned that “not every piece of California is ready for regulatory fire yet,” with “many areas where it is not safe to set fire to the ground under any circumstances.”

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Smoke from deliberate burns is also a problem, he said, although the state tries not to burn near sensitive places like hospitals. And the state cannot deliberately allow fires to burn on private land without permission and safeguards, Porter said, despite trying to get blanket permission from large forest owners so that the fires can safely continue after they start.

This means that officials in many areas continue to have to use manual crews, machines or animals to clear overgrown areas.

“As soon as we have safe areas to burn, we will reintroduce fire and that will be the most important tool in the future, but I am talking about decades,” Porter said. “We have to build this up gradually over the next many, many years to get to the right place and the right combination.”

The budget proposal, which lawmakers will consider before June 15, includes more than $ 48 million for the launch of a dozen new Cal Fire Fire Hawk helicopters and seven large C-130 air tankers like the ones Newsom said on Monday Fire Brigade Airfield in Sacramento. It has nearly $ 34 million to replace two state helicopter bases and build a new emergency operations center in Southern California.

More than $ 182 million would be spent on an additional 33 firefighters as the state partially offsets a dwindling number of firefighters in inmates from previous releases due to the coronavirus pandemic and years of relaxation of criminal laws. The money includes hiring an additional 1,399 seasonal firefighters. That will bring the total number of seasonal firefighters to nearly 4,000, which equates to nearly 3,400 permanent firefighters, Cal Fire said.

Legislators already approved $ 536 million earlier this year so the state can quickly begin approving local contracts for building fuel quarries near vulnerable communities or managing forest areas.

The rest is included in the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, though Porter said most of the firefighters have already been hired.
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Associate Press Writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this story from Albuquerque, New Mexico

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