By JP Crumrine
Correspondent

The National Weather Service’s forecast of an El Niño winter has strongly affected the prognosis of wildfires in the next few months. Fire services, state and federal, are expecting a cooler and wetter winter from December through March.

The December report from the Predictive Services Unit for Cal Fire’s Southern Region said “[with] normal precipitation for Southern California … the odds tilt in favor of large-fire potential to remain near normal.” And normal for this period is “zero.”

Currently, no drought areas exist within the state, and only two are “abnormally dry” in the desert. These conditions and the expectation of a wetter than normal winter significantly reduce the forecast of major winter wildfires.

“The combination of above normal fuel moisture for larger dead fuels and live fuels coupled with the El Niño pattern and absence of drought support this tilt in the odds for the December 2023 – March 2024 4-month period,” Cal Fire concluded.

The Wildfire Forecast and Threat Intelligence Integration Center (WFTIIC) reports no fire weather watches nor red flag warnings. The sole active fire is in Northern California.

The WFTIIC Significant Fire Potential maps from December through March indicate no anticipation of above normal fire threats anywhere in California.

However, it should be noted that the National Interagency Fire Center did express some caution about the appearance and effect of the predicted El Niño. “There is greater forecast uncertainty than typical for El Niño due to other climate, teleconnection, and ocean temperature patterns that do not often coincide with El Niño leading to a lack of previous events to predict from.”