Firefighters battle to tame Thermal fire while bracing for gusty winds
Fire crews were on high alert Tuesday as they prepared for Santa Ana winds, they’re expected to bring the most critical fire weather conditions to Southern California this year.
News Channel 3’s Dani Romero has more on how the high wind warnings are heighten the fire concerns.
A fast moving brush fire in Thermal. Firefighters locked in a grueling battle of ranging flames Tuesday morning.
The combination of expected damaging Santa Ana winds and dry vegetation threatens to ignite this fire.
“We are also having some fronts come in its going to cause a little bit of havoc when a low and high kinda of move away from each other, said Richard Cardova.
California’s Changing Climate Gives New Fuel to Fire Season Bloomberg 1/20/2021 Mark Chediak and Brian K. Sullivan
(Bloomberg) California’s changing climate has pushed fire season to new lengths, triggering once-rare winter blackouts.
State utilities cut power to more than 72,000 homes and businesses Tuesday in a preemptive effort to prevent live wires from sparking wildfires as Santa Ana winds threaten to fan flames. Blazes are breaking out nonetheless, including in Santa Cruz County, where two fires are prompting evacuations.
While the Santa Ana winds usually die off by November, they’re increasingly extending further into winter, underscoring how wild California’s weather has become as climate change drives extreme heat and drought. Last year, record temperatures took down large swaths of the state’s power grid and wildfires torched more acreage than ever before.