Severe Fire Activity in Southern California, Critical Fire Weather Friday-Sunday

It is only May and we are having very large scale fires with very intense fire behavior in Southern California. Drought and persistant winds, low relative humidity and triple digit temperatures have been recordered all of May. Fuel moistures are all ready at critical levels and another heat wave is in store for this weekend. We still have another 4-6 months of fire season and it may become a monster.

So far this year I have photographed the Springs fire in Camarillo, nearly 40,000 acres, the Grand fire in Frazier Park, 4,100 acres, White fire on the Los Padres National Forest 1,881 acres and several small IA fires, the Highway Fire, Magic Fire, Gorman Fire all along the Interstate 5 corridor. Last month we had another serious fire above Filmore CA threatening homes and real property.

Flame lengths have been well above average as fires are already spotting and crowning in heavier fuels, sounding the alarm for critical fire behavior. As warmer weather approachs and fuels continue to dry, fire behavior will intensify to the point where almost all IA fires will have the potential to become very large fires.

I will continue to monitor and publish fuel moisture content records as they become avialable and post fire weather during critical periods. Please follow along with Jeff Zimmerman on Facebook as social media seems to be very popular with younger firefighters.

We are expectiving critical fire weather conditions Friday through Sunday. An offshore flow will push temperatures into triple digits with very low RH values.

Please go to the GACC web site for fuels discusssion, http://gacc.nifc.gov/oscc/predictive/fuels_fire-danger/myfiles/Fuels_Discussion.pdf