PLACER COUNTY, Calif. — With record high temperatures in Sacramento and surrounding areas, wildfire preparation is underway in parts of Northern California.
North of Auburn, in Colfax, crews with Cal Fire Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit and the Placer County Fire Department performed a prescribed burn this week to reduce the wildfire threat to city infrastructure.
"We're obviously into what I would consider to be an earlier fire season, and you know, those prevention efforts are on the forefront of everyone's mind," said Brian Estes, the Cal Fire Unit Chief for the Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit and the Fire Chief for the Placer County Fire Department.
The times when crews are able to conduct these types of prevention efforts can be limited and depend on several factors including temperature, weather conditions and liability.
"We have to work within the windows that Mother Nature gives us and so our fire seasons have become, you know, much longer in California — really, truly year-round in most of our areas across the state, and certainly here locally, we are in a year-round fire season but we have what we call windows and those windows allow us to do certain types of work," Estes said.
Estes said the 2021 River Fire demonstrated the importance of prevention strategies and an aggressive, initial attack approach. The fire burned 2,619 acres and destroyed homes in both Nevada and Placer counties.
"What I think the River Fire showed us is that you know across large expanses of the foothills in California, wildland fires really don't care if it's in an unincorporated rural area or sometimes in an incorporated city like a Colfax or a Grass Valley or a number of other communities that are nestled into the foothills," he said.
But it's not just dry weather and specific windows that can make prevention and preparation difficult. Estes said there are still impacts from the December storms in Placer County that left thousands without power for days.
"We've seen a tremendous amount of dead and down material from the storm that is really just added to the fuel loading from what we would normally see," Estes said.
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Cal Fire has dedicated nearly $1,000,000 to Placer County, specifically to reduce the storm damage, according to Estes. However, the mindset for fire crews is shifting from winter storm danger to fire prevention.
"We are already seeing an uptick in our initial attack vegetation fires across the region, and I think that's only going to continue through the summer and it'll peak — what we're seeing is these peaks of our fire seasons happening later into September, October, even November, and sometimes complicated by those fall winds that we get across parts of California," Estes said.
Tips for homeowners:
Estes shared some tips for homeowners and landowners to help prevent fires on their properties.
"When you live in these high-risk communities across the foothills of California and you're a landowner and a homeowner, you need to understand that a responsibility goes with that," Estes said.
- Cal Fire and county organizations offer assistance and help in how to harden your home
- Use good, sensible building materials when you're building or remodeling a home
- Clear your property and make sure that you have good, defensible space
- Make sure that your address is marked
- Work with local grassroots organizations, the fire-safe councils and the Firewise communities
"That really is one of the most key factors for engagement with the community, is getting to know your neighbors, getting to know the people in your community and working with your grassroots organizations to do the preparatory work so that you know you can kind of provide that defense so that we can provide that offense," Estes said.
If you live in a wildfire-prone zone, Cal Fire suggests creating a defensible space around your home. Defensible space is an area around a building in which vegetation and other debris are completely cleared. At least 100 feet is recommended.
What questions do you have about the latest wildfires? If you're impacted by the wildfires, what would you like to know? Text the ABC10 team at (916) 321-3310.
For more information and resources, visit the Cal Fire website.
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