Jesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come

Jesusita Fire likely a sign of things to come
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 9, 2009










The wildfire crackling over dry chaparral and engulfing homes in Santa Barbara is an ominous sign for the Bay Area, which experts say is ready to burn after two years of drought.

Raging along an 8,600-acre stretch of coastline in the Santa Ynez Mountains, the 4-day-old Jesusita Fire has destroyed about 75 homes and forced the evacuation of more than 30,000 people.

It is an example of how dry shrublands are throughout California, which is enduring a third straight year of drought conditions, according to Rick Halsey, an ecologist and expert in fire fuels from Escondido.

"Every year seems to be getting worse," said Halsey, who works for the California Chaparral Institute. "I don't see the climate changing and people are still building. If this is any indication, it certainly seems like it is going to get a lot worse."

Invasive, fire-prone weeds have taken over in many areas of Northern and Southern California, he said, creating kindling for fire. Combine that with a warming climate, drought and an ever-increasing population and you have what he called "a perfect storm" for fire.

"You've got Mount Diablo up there," Halsey said. "The only thing that has saved that area is the coastal fog and less density of homes."

Recent rain showers in Northern California may have helped in the short term, but the damp grasslands are quickly drying out, said Paul Van Gerwen, a battalion chief and spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Annual grasses from Santa Cruz County north are three to five weeks drier than normal at this time of year, he said, and the trees and heavier fuels are also abnormally dry.

"That little bit of rain doesn't do anything for the big timber," Van Gerwen said.

It is the second year in a row that a big fire has erupted in May along the California coast, which is normally damp this time of year. The Summit Fire swept through the mountains west of Morgan Hill starting last May 22, scorching more than 4,000 acres, injuring 12 people and destroyed 132 homes and outbuildings.

That fire marked the beginning of a catastrophic fire season that had firefighters scrambling as flames crackled in every direction and blocked the sun with clouds of smoke.

"Here we have coastal ranges in California that don't normally see fire this early and we're seeing fire there in the spring," Van Gerwen said. "It creates a condition where people should beware of what could be in store this fire season."

The Santa Barbara fire is not what firefighters would characterize as a good omen.

Flames threatened homes Friday along a 5-mile front as columns of smoke billowed from the Santa Ynez Mountains. Most of the destroyed homes were in neighborhoods that rise up the foothills, ridges and canyons above the north edge of Santa Barbara.

Some 2,300 firefighters, 246 engines, 14 air tankers, including a DC-10 jet airplane, and 15 helicopters were battling the blaze, the cause of which remains under investigation, the Associated Press reported.

The blaze comes less than six months after another catastrophic fire burned through the upscale Santa Barbara County community of Montecito. That fire, known as the Tea Fire, destroyed 130 homes, including several multimillion-dollar mansions, injured 25 and forced the evacuation of 5,400 people.

Like the current blaze, it erupted amid superheated winds known as "Sundowners" because they blow north to south at dusk.

It was the first in a series of big fires in one week that devoured hundreds of homes and thousands of acres in Southern California. The fires last year came after a similarly calamitous fire season in 2007.

Tim Duane, professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Berkeley, said there is no way of knowing from the latest Santa Barbara fire whether this year will be as bad as last year. But, he said, the long-term outlook is grim.

"Fire seasons have become much earlier and more intense than they ever were before," Duane said. "It used to be that we'd have big fires around September and October. Last summer it happened in June. This fire in Santa Barbara is in the first week of May.

"Is it a bad omen for the Bay Area? You never know, but we can see patterns over time," he said. "If we keep building in places that are getting drier and hotter, the danger of fire is going to get worse."

Scientists predict that the biggest change in California from climate change this century will be an "alarming, increasing trend" in fire frequency between now and 2085. Acreage burned by fires is expected to increase by between 57 and 169 percent, according to a statistical model of the relationship between fires and climate conditions in California.

Research by the U.S. Forest Service shows that the average number of trees killed by fires has increased as a result of higher temperatures and less snowmelt.

Fires in the contiguous United States and Alaska release about 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to researchers. That amounts to 4 to 6 percent of the nation's total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel burning - with the fires contributing to global warming, which in turn is fueling more fires.


E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BANL17H9IR.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

© 2009 Hearst Communications Inc. | Privacy Policy | Feedback | RSS Feeds | FAQ | Site Index | Contact

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/08/BANL17H9IR.DTL