AUBURN, Calif. — It’s now fire season in Northern California and Cal Fire is fully preparing. There have already been a few small fires this month and Cal Fire is staying busy.
"Locally, each unit will declare fire season — do a declaration. The Nevada-Yuba-Placer (NEU) Unit here just in the foothills and up towards the Sierra Nevada Mountains, up towards Lake Tahoe… we're going to declare officially next Monday (June 26). We'll also move to our burning suspension as well,” said Jim Hudson, deputy chief of operations for the NEU Unit.
They’re staffing up as more fires are expected to develop based on current conditions and fuels. New firefighters are being brought in and trained to respond.
"This Monday (June 19), we started moving toward what we call peak staffing, which is our full staffing for the year with all of our aircraft available within the unit. Crews, dozers and we end up hiring our firefighters back,” said Hudson.
Earlier this week, several Cal Fire units announced the suspension of burn permits in Northern California counties, effective June 26. It bans all residential outdoor burning of landscape debris like branches and leaves.
"Obviously with the winter storms this year, we had a lot of snow and that brings a lot of debris onto the landscape and into our foothill and mountain communities. Luckily with the conditions that we had with the wet weather, it allowed us to keep burning up until Monday, June 26,” said Hudson.
The department might also issue restricted temporary burning permits if there is an essential reason.
As we get into the 2023 fire season, Cal Fire wants you to be prepared, follow the guidelines and regulations, and be educated on the ‘Ready, Set, Go!’ program to ensure you have the items you need if you have to evacuate.
Burn permits are suspending in the following counties on June 26: Alpine, Amador, Colusa, El Dorado, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Sierra, Solano, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.
Burn permits were also suspended in Calaveras, Tuolumne, Eastern San Joaquin and Eastern Stanislaus counties on June 19.
