Fire Danger...

About a year ago, the Horse Fire burned to within about three miles east of our home (the photos in this post are from that fire). That's the last major fire that burned close to us. In October 2003 we had the enormous Cedar Fire (and two smaller simultaneous fires) that burned all around us, but no closer than about six miles. In July 2002, the Pines Fire looked like it might be a serious threat, but in the end came no closer than about 15 miles. In January 2001, the Viejas Fire burned to within a mile to the north of our home. I was in Estonia at the time, and had the special experience of seeing "Lawson Valley in flames" across a CNN video (Lawson Valley is where we live). By the time I found out about the fire, Debbie had evacuated herself and our animals, and had quite an adventure while doing so.

So we have some history of nearby wildfires in the past six years. Our rainy season this year wasn't very rainy at all -- it's the lowest amount of rainfall in 130 years of record keeping (whereas last year was the second-highest!). This is mixed news. The lack of rain means that all the dead brush (the primary fuel in the chaparral) is as dry as the proverbial bone, and that of course increase the risk. However, the lack of rain also means that the new brush growth this year will be much lower than normal, which means less new fuel is being added.

Now we're entering our long, dry summer season (temperature highs are forecast at well over 100°F all week). The usual cycle here is that the chaparral will dry out all summer, and then by around September our fire danger will be very high until the first rains, which usually come between late December and early February. This year, the onset of the risky period is pulled forward to right now because of the lack of rainfall and the already-dry chaparral.

But that doesn't actually mean our risk of wildfire is unusually high this year. There actually are some factors working in our favor -- most especially the fact that in nearly every direction around us the fuel load has been burned off within the past six years. Our biggest risk isn't that someone starts a fire right in our valley -- no, the big risk is that a fire starts outside our valley, possibly many miles away, and then is blowin into our valley by the Santa Ana winds that come from the northeast and east each summer and fall. Best of all, in the most risky directions -- the direction the evil Santa Ana winds come from -- all the fuel was burned off by last year's Horse Fire.

There are still some fuel-laden paths that a wildfire could take into Lawson Valley, but they're not the most likely ones. The path that looks most risky to me starts just south of Descanso and follows the Japatul Valley just south of west from there to a point just east of Loveland Reservoir, then turns south into Lawson Valley. That path has not burned in many years, and there are (to my knowledge) no firebreaks constructed anywhere on it. There is a good defensive point along the crest of Gaskill Peak and the nearby hills, and the generally narrow path that constrains the blaze is easier to battle. Nonetheless, this path could be taken by a Santa Ana driven wildfire, so we'll be carefully watching any fires that start to the north-northeast of us. The other available paths are all much less worrisome. A wildfire could move north from Deerhorn Valley, but winds from that direction are rare. There's also plenty of fuel between us and the towns of Jamul and Rancho San Diego, but a wildfire would require strong winds from the west to drive that to us, and such winds are both rare and usually moisture-laden (unlike the bone-dry Santa Ana winds).

So we enter our fire season this year with an unusual combination of risks, some higher than usual and some lower. It's difficult to peg the overall risk, but my unscientific, intuitive take is that our overall risk is no worse than it has been in the past few years...