“We could have more intense fires earlier in the season, is what it suggests,” Clements said.Ĭalifornia is barreling toward its driest and most fire-prone months, with many locations around the Bay Area and Central Coast having seen about 50% or less of their average precipitation levels for this time of year. “They’re not bringing enough soil moisture up into their woody stems to grow. “The chamise was really, really problematic,” Clements recalled. The plants are about as dry as they would normally be a few months from now, he said. AdministratorĬraig Clements, director of San Jose State’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory, said it was the first time he had ever found no new chamise growth to study. Those dry plants are fuel for wildfires, and they’re primed to burn explosively.
It’s an ominous sign of just how dry the vegetation is around California, where boundless numbers of plants and trees have been starved of life-sustaining water thanks to an entire winter of paltry precipitation. This month, a San Jose State University team analyzing moisture levels was shocked at what it found at study sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains.Īt two locations researchers found no new growth to cut from the shrubs. They are highly flammable and abundant in wildland areas - and, for that reason, a bellwether to wildfire researchers. The chamise plants that blanket California’s shrubby chaparral should have grown new sprouts by now, flowering after winter rains before baking in the arid summer heat. LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle 2020 Show More Show Less 7 of7Ī burned tree trunk is marked along Empire Grade in Santa Cruz. The Camp Growlersberg inmate hand crew clears a preventative fire break in Boony Doon (Santa Cruz County) in August. LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 6 of7 Trees burned by the CZU fire at the Cal Fire Ben Lomand Training Center in Santa Cruz. Nic Coury / Special to The Chronicle 2020 Show More Show Less 5 of7 Nic Coury / Special to The Chronicle 2020 Show More Show Less 4 of7įirefighters spray water on the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burning behind a home on Madrone Avenue near Boulder Creek (Santa Cruz County) in August.
LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of7Ī home along Highway 236 near Boulder Creek smolders after being destroyed in the CZU Lightning Complex Fire in August. LiPo Ching / Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of7Ĭal Fire Santa Cruz and San Mateo Unit firefighters Donny Rippberger (left) and Ludovic Deshayes practice at the Cal Fire Ben Lomand Training Center in Santa Cruz. Remnants of the CZU fire borders untouched land near Pine Flat Road and Bonny Doon Road in Santa Cruz.
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