Hailing from Redding, CA, I’ve seen my fair share of wildfires. Once, in high school, while late night swimming at Whiskeytown Lake, some friends and I beat out a fire with our towels alongside highway 299. A car speeding by saw us on the roadside, hit the brakes, and sparks flew everywhere, lighting the roadside scrub in an instant and immediately beginning to spread. Scary stuff.

As bad as the last few years have been for wildfires, it looks like this year is shaping up to be apocalyptic. Wired has an article talking about chamise and how the chaparral scrub is being used to measure the ambient water retention in these dry areas. TL;DR, it’s not looking so great:

And nothing scares a fire weather scientist quite like a year with dehydrated chamise. If it’s dry, then that’s a good indicator that everything is dry. “Right now, these are the lowest April 1 fuel moistures we’ve ever had,” Clements says. This is supposed to be the time of year when moisture levels are at their highest, thanks to recent autumn and winter rains. But California is withering in a drought. […] The California landscape appears ready to burn epically this year.

The Humble Shrub That’s Predicting a Terrible Fire Season, Matt Simon, Wired

So let’s check back on this one. I’ve put a reminder to check-in in the CA situation in November 2021 (hopefully post fire season) this year to see how accurate this forecast is.