Dry, sunny weather heightens Sonoma County’s wildfire risks

Residents may be reveling under sunny skies expected to last through the week, with little chance of rain until January. But firefighters are uneasy as one of the key sources for wildland fires grows alarmingly dry.

Small dry, dead logs lying on the forest floor in the hills of the Bay Area, including Sonoma County, are approaching record dry levels for this time of year, creating a “scary” condition if the sun continues to shine, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Marshall Turbeville said.

If a fire were to start at the base of a hill on a windy day or night “it could be off to the races,” he said Monday.

Dead wood burns with enough heat to ignite trees above them, Turbeville said. In a wet winter, the logs absorb so much water they can’t catch fire until summer, he said.

A light rain that dropped nearly one-quarter of an inch on Santa Rosa on Oct. 20 punctuated an end to the blazes that ravaged the region, and the first half of November brought an additional six inches of precipitation, 128 percent of normal for the month, according to Ken Clark, a meteorologist for Accuweather.

But December so far has added a minuscule 0.04 inches of rain in what is, along with January, one of the two historically wettest months for Santa Rosa, he said.

Cal Fire, meanwhile, has hired back about 30 firefighters in the Sonoma, Lake and Napa unit, Turbeville said, and may add more personnel to cope with the conditions.

The only breaks from nature, he said, are the short winter days with the sun shining at a lower angle plus cold nighttime temperatures and fog that puts some moisture into grass and brush, he said.

Without rain in the North Bay, “we get an early start to the 2018 fire season,” Turbeville said.

The National Weather Service sees no rain soon for Sonoma County, with sunny days and temperatures in the mid-60s through Sunday, meteorologist Carolina Walbrun said.

There’s a “real iffy” prospect for rain around Dec. 20, according to one computer model, but other models see continued dry skies, she said.

Accuweather, a private forecasting service, predicts “periods of rain” bringing about a quarter of an inch of precipitation on Dec. 19, with a smaller amount on Dec. 31, Clark said.

“That could change,” he said, noting that long-range forecasts are based on computer models and not existing conditions. “We have to view them with a little skepticism,” he said.

The first week of January will be dry in Santa Rosa, according to Accuweather’s forecast, followed by 10 straight days of rain totaling more then seven inches.

Last January, nearly 19 inches of rain fell on Santa Rosa, Clark said.

California is in a “weak to moderate” La Niña year, which means the odds favor a drier than normal winter.

But, he said, one strong storm could bring Sonoma County back to normal.