California Wildfire Update

Rain, Higher Humidities and Light Winds Aid Firefighters

A combination of rain, higher humidities and relatively light winds have enabled firefighters to make considerable progress at extinguishing the southern California wildfires. The Eaton, Hughes and Palisades fires and nearing 100% containment. The relatively newer and smaller Border Fire, which is down by the Mexican border is now 43% contained.

The rain was significant. You can see that UCLA and Ventura both had over an inch an LAX a touch over 1/3rd inch.

The southern California wildfires have burned 57,528 acres and16,255 structures. The amount of area burned is equivilant to 9.8% of Kent County or nearly twice the size of the city of Grand Rapids.

There have been 1,427 wildfires in the U.S. this year and that’s the 4th highest number of fires from Jan. 1-27 out of the past 10 years. The number of acres burned is the highest for Jan. 1-27 out of the past 10 years.

I have not heard much about how the fires started. There was no lightning, so I think it’s safe to assume that one way or the other, the fires were of human origin.

From NBC/San Diego: “JUST IN: Investigators say recent wildfires in La Jolla, Mission Valley and Rancho Bernardo started in homeless encampments.