Fire Threat In California To Ease As Rains Move In

The Kincade Fire in parched northern California started October 23 and was
finally fully contained on November 6. Rain is finally in the California
forecast, which will dampen further fire risk. Photo by Josh
Edelson AFP/Getty Images

In the good news department, California's fire season looks like it's about to come to an end.

Over the next week, rain and mountain snow is expected to hit the entire state.  It won't be an extreme amount of precipitation, but it will tamp down the fire threat.

Some rain has already fallen in southern California earlier this week, but northern parts of the state remained dry.

That's a bit of an odd pattern. During the onset of the West Coast rainy season,  successive storms gradually work their way south, first wetting down the north then finally making things damp in the south later on.

The rain was welcome there, and in neighboring Arizona and Utah.  Rain fell on St. George, Utah the other day after a record 155 dry days. 

It's been really dry in northern California, which explains the wildfires in October and earlier this month there. Not a drop of rain fell on San Francisco in October and so far this month.  They should have had roughly 2.5 inches of rain during that period.

This has been a recent pattern in northern California, in which the late autumn wet season starts late.  Last year, California's deadliest fire on record destroyed the town of Paradise, killing more than 80 people. The fire started on November 8, a time of year that should have already  had some autumn rains, but there hadn't been anything.

Rainfall starting next Tuesday in northern California is likely to be modest, probably a quarter inch to up to an inch in spots. Hey, they'll take anything they can get.

The rain and snow that's coming won't entirely erase the fire threat, of course. Winter dry spells can still raise the risk of fires, especially in southern California.

Plus, they'l have to watch out for heavier storms as the winter progresses, especially where there have been fires. The blazes wiped out vegetation that would hold soil and rocks in place.  That means heavy rainfall can trigger mudslides and debris flows.

California, as beautiful as it is, certainly has its hazards, doesn't it?