Graphic of the Day - Stats For An Early Fire Season

All that rain in December through February which spurred tremendous growth of flashy fuels like grass, disappeared in March for much of the state, leading to an ongoing early drying out of such luxuriant growth. That means one thing: early onset of an active fire season in the lower elevations of the bottom half of the state. Just yesterday, via my scanner, I heard the first (for me) grass fire dispatch of 2017 when Fresno-Kings Unit of CAL FIRE responded to the Derrick Incident on the west side of Coalinga, CA, for a grass fire in the oil fields.... and so it begins. Already in the North County of San Luis Obispo County, the south aspects of many a grassy hill or mountainside have begun to turn brown and it is only early April.