In reality the fire season in California is now 365 days a year. The fires we'd expect to see in August and September are happening now. The record-breaking heat wave that has been baking the West in 100-degree-plus temperatures only serves to wring every bit of possible humidity out of the air, making the initiation and further sparking of fires easier.
While wholesale losses of homes and subdivisions in the hundreds or thousands of homes have been avoided to date, I expect at some point in this "fire season" that we will see a megafire that gets into the interface zone where homes have been built where the urban and forest/brush meet.
All of the above does not bode well for our ability to mitigate future fires. The warming planet is going to be a real issue in the years ahead, not only for our fire discipline partners, but also for emergency managers.
