After two years of devastating wildfire in 2020 and 2021, California experienced three relatively mild years in a row.
But this year began with historic blazes in Los Angeles when months of extremely dry winter conditions combined with 100 mph Santa Ana winds, destroying more than 16,000 homes and killing 30 people in a disaster that shocked the nation.
Does that mean California is in for another bad year as summer temperatures heat up and vegetation dries out? Not necessarily, fire experts say. But here’s a clue: How much rain and snow fell during the previous winter?
Since 1993, seven of the 10 worst fire years in California, ranked by total acres burned, have occurred after drier-than-normal winters. By contrast, eight of the state’s 10 mildest fire years occurred after wetter-than-normal winters, according to an analysis by the Bay Area News Group and Golden Gate Weather Services, a Half Moon Bay company.
“Generally, we see that wet years have fewer large fires” said Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University. “And big years with lots of acres burned often come after dry winters. If you have less water and lower soil moisture, the plants dry out quicker and earlier in the season.”
To be sure, more grass grows after wet winters. And grass is flammable. But when trees and shrubs contain more moisture, experts say, it’s more difficult for fires to spread quickly into out-of-control infernos.
“Fire agencies always say it’s going to be a bad fire year,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, who has examined fire and rain patterns for decades. “If it’s wet, they say there are a lot of fuels. If it’s dry, they say everything is bone dry. But it can’t be worse-than-normal every year.”
Both Null and Clements noted that unexpected variables, such as huge dry lightning storms, multiple arsonists or extreme wind events, can spike fire danger in any year. But generally speaking, wet winters lower wildfire risk and dry winters increase it.
What does that mean this year? It’s a tale of two states.
Northern California received much more rain and snow this winter than Southern California.
From Oct. 1 through Thursday, Santa Rosa received 123% of its historical average, while San Francisco was at 87% and Los Angeles was at just 58%. San Diego was even lower, at 48%. While none of the nine Bay Area counties are currently classified as being in any kind of drought, all of Southern California from Santa Barbara to San Diego is, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal report.
“We are expecting high fire activity in Southern California,” said Battalion Chief Jess Torres, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state’s main firefighting agency. “We have vegetation that is drying out more and more. Southern California could potentially be worse than Northern California. But we don’t want people to let their guard down anywhere.”
After the Los Angeles fires, state lawmakers introduced a dozen bills aimed at increasing readiness and wildfire response.
One of the main bills, SB 581, by Sen. Mike McGuire, a Santa Rosa Democrat, would convert roughly 3,000 seasonal Cal Fire firefighters who work 9 months a year to full-time staff. That bill, which would cost about $175 million a year, passed the state Senate 39-0 this month with support from Republicans and Democrats. It now goes to the Assembly.
Cal Fire also continues to expand. The agency has nearly doubled its fire protection staff since 2019, from 5,829 to 10,741 positions, and nearly doubled its fire protection budget from $2 billion to $3.8 billion.
In April, Cal Fire rolled out a new C-130 Hercules cargo plane, a massive former Coast Guard aircraft retrofitted to carry 4,000 gallons of fire retardant — more than triple the capacity of the other tankers that Cal Fire has been using for years. The agency also has been acquiring new Nighthawk helicopters, which can drop water and fire retardant at night.
Working with UC San Diego, Cal Fire has helped create a system of 1,144 remote video cameras perched statewide on hills and mountain tops to detect wildfires, called ALERTCalifornia. Using AI, the cameras report fires to emergency dispatchers, sometimes faster than humans do, and can complete 360-degree sweeps every two minutes out to 60 miles away.
Firefighters say that it’s critical every year that homeowners clear brush and flammable materials away from their homes.
“Give us a fighting chance to save your home or business,” said Matt Thau, a battalion chief with the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department.
There are other concerns. Climate change has made heat waves and droughts more severe. The 10 hottest years on record globally since 1880 all have occurred since 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
President Trump’s administration fired 3,400 workers at the U.S. Forest Service — about 10% of the agency’s staff — in February as part of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. Since then, the administration has reduced Forest Service staffing by another 4,000 people through early retirement offers.
Firefighters have been exempt from those cuts. But many “red cards” — employees who hold certifications for firefighting skills and can deploy during major wildfires — have left, some taking early retirement or let go as probationary employees as part of an effort to trim the federal workforce.
Tom Schultz, a former timber industry executive whom Trump named to run the Forest Service, has asked some of those workers to come back. On Wednesday, Schultz told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee not to worry.
“I do believe they’re ready,” Schulz told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “When it comes to the wildfire season, yes ma’am, we do have the critical folks in place.”
California has 18 national forests in the Sierra Nevada, Big Sur, and mountains around Los Angeles, covering 20 million acres, or one-fifth of the state.
Murray and other Democratic senators were skeptical.
“The stakes are life and death here,” Murray said. “It feels like we are not prepared for this wildfire season. You just said we were. We’ll see what happens. But I fear I’m going to be right.”
Firefighters watch a helicopter drop water on the Palisades Fire in Mandeville Canyon in Los Angeles, Jan. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Homes in the hills above Pacific Coast Highway sit in ruins after being burned by the Palisades Fire in Malibu, CA, on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. The Palisades Fire, burning in the Santa Monica Mountains, has burned an estimated 5,300 structures. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Firefighters respond to a 15 acre blaze that broke out in the grass near Happy Hollow Park and Zoo Wednesday May 14, 2025. (San Jose Fire Department)
