Santa Cruz County bracing for another threatening fire season
Santa Cruz County is bracing for another tough fire season with severe drought conditions and reoccurring spot fires.
There have been ten fires in just the last few weeks.
"There's several indicators that are kind of concerning to us and one is the fuel moisture and the overall drought outlook," said Cal Fire Unit Chief, Ian Larkin.
High winds Tuesday, rekindled a fire located in the CZU burn scar in the middle of Big Basin State Park. It burned almost 12 acres of duff, or forest litter before Cal Fire got it under control.
It's an example of how the drought is a major concern as we head into summer.
"The lack of rain that would have helped suppress all of those underground wood fires that are continuing to burn, continue to pop up We’re working with state park to patrol those areas and most of those well out in the middle of state park," said Chief Larkin.
During a Zoom meeting, Cal Fire Unit Chief, Ian Larkin spoke before the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, warning that usual water sources where crews draw water from are in short supply which is a concern in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
"The availability of water for us to fight fire is limited at this point.We're trying to establish assemble a list of water sources within the community--people have pods and whatnot," said Joe Christy, president of the Bonny Doon, Fire Safe Council.
Larkin told the board that local fire strike teams will be deployed more than usual to battle blazes throughout California.
"We're already seeing impacts. We're trying to reduce those impacts by not sending an entire strike team."
Inmate hand crews are going to continue to be hard to replace after many of them were granted early release at the height of the pandemic.
The California Conservation Corps and the Army National Guard have been called in to fill that gap.
"There's no guarantee they're going to be available. Santa Clara is going to be committed more times than they're going to be available."