Early fire season stokes fears

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By JOHN ROGERS

LOS ANGELES - When they weren't racing to mountainsides and canyons to fight fast-moving, potentially deadly blazes this week, firefighters sometimes found themselves scratching their heads.

They do not usually see such major blazes in Southern California before Aug. 1. Most happen in October, when hot Santa Ana winds can push flames across huge areas.

"A lot of us are looking at each other and saying, 'Wait a minute, it's mid-July and this is happening,'" said Angeles National Forest spokesman Stanton Florea.

Firefighters fear the unprecedented early onslaught of wildfires could foretell a replay of last year's catastrophic fire season, when two dozen people were killed and more than 3,500 homes destroyed.

In the past week, blazes have burned across more than 48,000 acres of dry brush and trees in Southern California. Thousands of residents have been evacuated.

Five years of drought have drained desert brush all but dry, while a bark-beetle infestation has killed thousands of trees in Southern California forests, prolonging the dire conditions firefighters faced last year.

"It's going to be like a double whammy in that both factors will be coming together in the fall," said Ruth Wenstrom, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

Two major fires earlier this week - a 17,000-acre blaze near Lake Hughes and a 6,000-acre one that scorched hillsides and canyons on the edge of Santa Clarita - "spread very rapidly, really, without any substantial wind behind them," Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Savage said.

Firefighters ordinarily knock such blazes down quickly, he said. But the drought has made brush and timber particularly susceptible to what firefighters call "spotting," in which embers break loose from the main fire and float off, igniting other dry fuel when they touch down. That causes fires to grow rapidly and become dangerous for firefighters.

Last fall was the most disastrous fire season in California history. Gigantic blazes burned across more than 750,000 acres, destroying 3,650 homes and killing 24 people.