Napa Fire: September in July

The big brush fire in northern Napa country, CA has been burning for over 24 hours and despite 1,000 firefighters is not under control as of Wednesday afternoon.

Fire Napa July

“With rainfall at near-historic lows over the past 12 months – on the heels of two previous years with little precipitation – the forests and grassland of Northern California are exceptionally parched.

“No one can really remember it being drier than this,” said Bill Stewart, a forestry specialist at UC Berkeley. “We’re like two months drier than usual. This is like September, when everything is nearly bone-dry.”

“…Already this year, more wildfires have hit the state than usual. State firefighters, who battle the bulk of California’s blazes, have counted 2,700 incidents between January and July – a 50 percent jump from the 1,800 wildland fires they respond to on average during the same period, according to state fire data.

Last month, an unusually early 2,600-acre blaze raged west of Kern County’s Lake Isabella in the southern Sierra. In May, a series of conflagrations in San Diego County tore through some 14,000 acres, forcing more than 20,000 people to evacuate.”

SF Gate

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