It’s always fire season
SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS Firefighters here never get a break from brush fire season.
With dry and warm weather year round in Southern California, there seems to be no such thing as a determined season for when brush fires are frequent, especially not with the recent drought, leaving Los Angeles on pace for its driest year ever.
The city of Los Angeles has received less than 3 inches of rain to date this season. The driest rain season on record in Los Angeles was set during the 2001-2002 season when only 4.42 inches of rain fell.
For the Los Angeles County Fire Department, this has meant moving its brush inspection from April to March because of the dry conditions and extremely dry vegetation in the Santa Monica Mountains.
“We are very aware we haven’t received any precipitation in those areas,” said Capt. Michael Brown, spokesman for Los Angeles County Fire Department. “Brush season for L.A. County has been year round. We’ve seen fires during the winter time, during the spring time and basically all throughout the year.”
The Santa Monica Mountains have not seen an extreme fire since the Calabasas fire in 1996 which started near the 101 Freeway and burned all the way down to the coastal area, said Chief John Todd of the Forestry Division for LACFD. The most recent fire in the mountains was in January when several homes burned down near Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Canyon Road.
L.A. County and L.A. City fire departments monitor weather conditions daily to keep an eye out for conditions favorable to brush fires. County fire officials receive weather forecasts at 4 p.m. for the following day. Depending on the conditions, fire officials will determine whether staffing will need to be augmented for the following day. Augmenting can mean more patrol units and engine companies.
Depending on conditions, L.A. City Fire Department will pre-deploy units to the Santa Monica Mountains in anticipation of a fire. The department operates from a brush burning index (BBI) that runs from zero to greater than 212. When the BBI is greater than 152, which is when the humidity is low and the wind and temperatures are high, the department will pre-deploy resources just in case.
On days when the wind is greater than 25 mph and humidity is less than 15 percent, the L.A. City Fire Department will post a red flag warning and prohibit parking in certain areas, said Ron Myers, spokesman for the department.
There are approximately four to seven red flag days each year.
When fires in the Santa Monica Mountains are getting too wild, the Santa Monica Fire Department (SMFD) is called in for assistance.
Santa Monica Fire Department is part of a mutual aid group, called Region A, which includes L.A. City, L.A. County, Culver City and Beverly Hills. When additional help is needed, the agencies form a strike team, which usually includes two engines each from Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills and a rotating battalion chief from one of the agencies.
“As soon as those engines leave the jurisdiction, we have reserve rigs... so that the man power in the city is always up to the level citizens expect it should be,” said Capt. Scott Ziegert of SMFD.
Though the Santa Monica Mountains are not in its jurisdiction, new firefighters in the Santa Monica Fire Department receive training from L.A. County Fire Department on fire brush awareness.
Ziegert recalls when brush fire season used to be defined as a period of time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. With the drought in recent years, fire departments have to be on constant alert.
“We used to put the hose on our assigned rigs during certain times of the year,” he said. “Now we have to leave them on at all times because it’s so dry and we don’t know when it [fire] will be.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 4, 2007. Read the original PDF.