MENDOCINO CO., 5/5/25 – Mendocino County firefighters are preparing for a difficult fire season this summer.
The latest seasonal outlook report from the National Interagency Fire Center Predictive Services released Thursday predicts an early fire season, with significant fire potential for June, July, and August, further complicating difficulties created by federal budget cuts.
Brett Lutz, fire meteorologist for the Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, said the seasonal outlook combines two factors: predicted warmer-than-normal temperatures and fuel characteristics. The latter includes fuel loading, or the amount of grass, brush, and trees on the land, and the moisture contained in those live and dead fuels.
While consistent rain and snow over the past few years have lifted much of Northern California out of drought conditions, they have also supported high growth rates for fuels like grass and brush. When these fuels dry out, they become an important factor in large fire growth.
“You’re likely to see some fuel curing in the herbaceous fuels, the grass and to some degree brush as well,” Lutz said.
Especially in inland areas, this curing is happening earlier than usual, which signifies an early start to fire season.
The seasonal outlook report also noted a heightened risk of “flash drought,” which occurs when there are intense heat waves capable of drying out fuels to dangerous levels over a short period of time. As an example, Lutz pointed to the record-breaking heat wave in early July of last year, which created conditions that allowed the Park Fire to expand to the fourth-largest in California history, burning through nearly 430,000 acres in Butte and Tehama counties in 2024.
Wind, though harder to predict months in advance, plays a considerable role in the spread of wildfires, as seen recently with the disastrous wildfires in the Los Angeles area. According to Lutz, July and August face a higher likelihood of northerly dry wind events, which, when coupled with dry fuels, create red flag conditions.
Outside of these key months, May is predicted to remain sporadic in its weather, with cool and moist periods mixed with warming and drying periods. The warming and drying trend should become strong in the summer in the inland Bay Area, Lutz said.
“The grass is definitely turning a little sooner than expected,” said Shane Lamkin, battalion chief for the Cal Fire Mendocino Unit. “It usually starts around this time of year anyway, but we’re already seeing those greens turning yellow — especially in the valley, and particularly the Ukiah Valley.”
This observation is backed by data, noted Kevin Osborne, a fire analyst with the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s just happening earlier, which means then curing happens earlier and once the brush fuels are available, then you have that alignment between the valley floor and the foothills with all the grass and then the mid elevation with all the chamise and manzanita,” he said. “Once those both are available, the opportunities for large fire really increase because you can transition the same fire from the lower elevations to the upper elevations or mid elevations.”
Local winds also become a bigger factor as summer heats up, Osborne said, especially those that blow down the lee slopes of the coastal ranges during hot inland days.
“Those thermal trough winds that blow down the slope into the valley – those are going to be driven by long periods of hot dry weather, and we’re expecting a really warm and dry summer,” Osborne said. “We’re always warm and dry, right? But extended warm dry periods tend to really help develop the trough and make those winds pretty strong.”
In addition to these predictions, cuts at the federal level affecting the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service will play a significant role in how fires are fought. Federal agencies like these employ the majority of wildland firefighters across the nation, including thousands in California.
In the past few months, many employees were laid off or took buyouts. Though the cuts have largely affected non-firefighting employees, many red-carded employees — qualified firefighters who are able to leave their day jobs to assist firefighting efforts — have been affected. This can hamper fire response, especially during large fire years, when firefighting resources are already stretched thin.
“It’s definitely possible that people with qualifications that support firefighting on those larger fires could be missing because of that,” Osborne said. However, he emphasized the cuts have not targeted frontline firefighters.
“Staffing challenges that forests have faced in the past they’re going to continue to face because it’s just difficult to find employees to work hard in rough terrain and remote locations,” he said. “But currently the federal government has specifically avoided targeting fire.”
The majority of Mendocino County is state and private land, and Cal Fire is preparing earlier than ever for the coming fire season, Lamkin said.
“On the state side we’ve been getting ready as early as January this year to hire back our seasonal workforce. I’d say several months earlier than we normally have,” Lamkin said. “All of our engines are staffed up to their full capacity and we’re taking the measures that we need to be ready for an early fire season.”
Lamkin also stressed the work property owners can do in the coming weeks to assist with fire prevention.
“Right now, we encourage residents to take advantage of the time to clear any kind of vegetation that’s unwanted on their property, or anything that would pose a risk to their homes. But we encourage them to do it in a safe manner. And to do so, you can apply for a burn permit by going to burnpermit.fire.ca.gov.”
More information on how to prepare a home for fire danger can be found at readyforwildfire.org. For active incidents throughout the state and information about them, including evacuations, go to fire.ca.gov. Mendocino County emergency information can be found at mendoready.org.
Caio Driver is a freelance writer and a firefighter.
I didnt know wildfires accepted kickbacks
It seems like every summer we have Global Warming again. (or is it just me.)