SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Fall in California is often a beautiful time of year with amazing foliage and pleasant temperatures.
It's also a dangerous time of year as fuels dry out after months of no rainfall.
Using a metric called the Energy Release Component [ERC], fire experts can gauge how easily vegetation would burn and grow if it were to catch fire.
It's on a scale with base conditions and record high and low conditions as well. Fuels — vegetation like grasses, shrubs and trees — are often least likely to catch fire and spread during the rainy season. As temperatures warm up, and the lack of rain drys out, the fuel levels rise and often peak in the summer. During the fall, depending on storms, the fuel can remain at a nearly high level until rain drops the level and fires have a more difficult time starting and growing.
This year has not only been dry, but warm. Recent temperatures have been very warm for this time year and missing daily records by only a few degrees. This has extended the range of dangerously combustible vegetation by about another month with no rain in the forecast.
The extreme winds, however, do not appear for at least a week or more, so the risk remains in the fuel and not in the weather as well.
Up and down the state, the same record or near record conditions remain.
Rain is the only thing that will bring these high levels down and that remains only a slight possibility 10-15 days away in mid-November.
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