If you’ve been having to pull a lot of those dry weeds and brush from your backyard in recent weeks, then you know what firefighters were facing who battled that wildfire south of Jamul over the weekend.
Not exactly in the same way maybe, but all that rain this past winter sprouted weeds and brush to shoot up all over the place this spring.
The stuff grew faster and spread wider than it has in years. And a lot of what caught fire and burned quickly was all that brush and all those weeds.
It went from 10 acres to hundreds of acres in a few hours and ended up burning more than two thousand acres.
You don’t have that much within100 feet from your home, but if you do, this weekend’s fire is another reminder to get it cleared from around your house so if a wildfire does break out near you live, you can better protect your home if it gets that close.
The weekend fire also is a reminder that with all the vegetation out there because of the heavy rain this winter, it doesn’t take much for the kinds of wildfires to get started and spread. They think this weekend’s fire was sparked in a remote target shooting area, but it wasn’t remote enough to keep flames from spreading and threatening homes and forcing evacuations within hours of it starting.
All the rain we had this winter and with drought conditions over, it may give us a false sense of security about the chances of wildfires this summer and fall.
This weekend, it was yet another reminder that here in Southern California, we’re always in fire season, drought or no drought.
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(Photo credit Cal Fire Capt, Isaac Sanchez)