Contra Costa fire captain explains how fire conditions vary across county
On Saturday, temperatures in some inland areas were forecast to hit triple digits. The hot weather comes on the heels of a government report last week that said the state's above-average snowpack is melting at a record-breaking pace.
It's raising the possibility of drought and an early start to the wildfire season.
Contra Costa County has one of the most diverse land masses in the Bay Area. So, when things start heating up, it can present significantly different timelines when it comes to wildfire.
On a hill above San Pablo, overlooking San Francisco Bay, Contra Costa Fire Captain George Laing walked along a path, surveying the golden grasses swaying in the wind.
"So, if you grab this grass, this is dry," he said, pulling up a handful of the arid weeds. "You can hear it's dry, it feels dry except for there's a little bit of surface moisture on it because it's kind of humid out here."
Laing can tell fire danger simply by feeling the grass. In San Pablo, the temperature was in the high 70s with an ocean breeze that made it feel even cooler. Laing said fire could still happen there, but it would move a lot slower.
"But the further east you go in our jurisdiction, the more sustained the warmer conditions are and the drier conditions are," he said. "So, you'll see areas that are completely dry and ready to go."
One of those areas would be Brentwood on the eastern edge of the county. There, the temperature was hovering near 100 degrees and at the Three Nunn's produce farm, Ana Valencia's lemonade stand was doing booming business.
"For sure," she said. "Yeah, a lot more. I think double what I usually sell because everybody's trying to stay cool."
Just across from the farm, the hillside is blackened, the scene of a recent grassfire that, thankfully, was contained to a few acres. But in Brentwood, they know that 99 degrees is not the end of the hot weather.
"No. Way hotter than this. It's just starting," said Valencia. "So, it's going to get worse, I know it's coming. This is just the start of it." But did the heat ever make her worry about wildfire? "Oh, for sure, 100%," she said. "Because there's a bunch of grass out here and the majority of it, some of it, is dry. And there's a bunch of land here, so it can just catch on really quick."
"What you need to have fire is for all the moisture to burn off the cellulose material," explained Laing. "Once that ignites, then you have a fire. The sooner the moisture evaporates from the grass, the more readily it ignites."
With a territory that stretches from the cool of the Bay to the heat of Brentwood, Con Fire's "fire season" can begin as early as May in the east, to as late as July or August nearer the Bay. But Laing said there is no place that is immune to the danger.
"This is the prevailing wind. This is coming off the Bay," he said. "It's cool, it's moist, you can still see there's a little bit of the marine layer over there. It's when the winds come from the other direction, and they're dry and they're hot. And the very strong winds can actually blow down these slopes and create significant problems for firefighters because it's not something that you would normally expect."
These days, no one is sure what to expect in the way of weather. But the science remains clear. Hot weather dries out the grasses, opening the door for the fires to come.
