Calaveras Enterprise

Cal Fire announces peak season staffing to continue throughout much of state




The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced Friday that though fire season is finally over in Northern California, it intends to continue peak season staffing in the central and southern portions of the state.

“As drought conditions continued throughout the year, we experienced a significant increase in the number and size of fires,” said Chief Ken Pimlott, Cal Fire’s director. “Even with the increased likelihood of precipitation due to El Nino, it will still take several years of steady rainfall for some of the larger vegetation to return to normal levels and no amount of rain will bring back millions of bark beetle-infested dead and dying trees across the state. We can’t let our guard down, especially with changing climate conditions leading to longer fire seasons and larger wildfires.”

Calaveras County is within the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit of the agency and is part of the agency’s southern region. Neighboring Amador County and the Amador-Eldorado Unit are part of the northern region.

The agency reported that its 2015 fire season was more active than was the 2014 season. Statewide, firefighters from Cal Fire and local agencies battled over 6,100 wildfires that burned nearly 308,000 acres within the state responsibility area. The Butte Fire in Calaveras and Amador counties burned 70,868 acres.

The 2015 total for the state responsibility areas is nearly 1,800 more wildfires this year than in an average year. Across all jurisdictions in California, there were over 8,100 wildfires that burned nearly 825,000 acres in 2015.

A leading cause of wildfires this time of year is from escaped outdoor landscape debris burning. Residents are urged to still take precautions outdoors in order to prevent sparking a wildfire. In Northern and Central California, residents should ensure it’s a permissive burn day in their area by contacting the local air quality district and make sure they have any and all required burn permits.

During burning, make sure that piles of landscape debris are no larger than four feet in diameter, provide a 10-foot clearance down to bare mineral soil around the burn pile and that a responsible adult is in attendance at all times with a water source and a shovel. 

Firefighters will also be utilizing this same window of opportunity to conduct prescribed burns aimed at improving forest health on private and public lands.

For more ways to prevent sparking a wildfire visit readyforwildfire.org.

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