California’s largest wildfire so far this year was widely engulfed Monday after charring swathes of hilly grassland between San Francisco Bay and the Central Valley.
The Corral Fire, which burned more than 22 square miles over the weekend, is 75% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. One home was destroyed and two firefighters were injured.
The fire, caused by high winds, began Saturday afternoon on land managed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation’s leading centers for nuclear weapons science and technology. The cause is under investigation.
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Thousands of people in the area, including parts of the city of Tracy in San Joaquin County, were ordered to evacuate to shelters on Saturday. The orders were lifted as the weather improved, allowing firefighters to make progress on putting out the blaze.
Lawrence Livermore University spokesman Paul Rhyne said in a statement to The Associated Press early Sunday that the wildfire did not pose a threat to any research facilities or operations.
California has had two consecutive years of rain that have helped spur vegetation growth while breaking a drought. The Cal Fire 2024 outlook notes that dry conditions from mid-May through June could lead to more small fires that could escalate into larger ones if winds allow. The Coral Fire is by far the largest of the more than 1,200 wildfires that have burned so far this year.
Santa Clara firefighters work to extinguish a blaze that broke out in the median strip of Interstate 580 during the Corral Fire west of Tracy, California, on Saturday, June 1, 2024. (Kent Porter/Press Democrat via The Associated Press)
The progress on the Corral Fire comes just ahead of a predicted heatwave, with the National Weather Service warning of “dangerously hot” conditions across the Central Valley from Tuesday through Thursday.
Though the fire has been largely contained, hotter temperatures generally mean fires burn more fiercely, said Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment at Syracuse University. High winds can also carry embers onto highways, he added. Drought contributes to dangerous fire seasons, but paradoxically, wet years also fuel fires.
“On the other hand, moisture also encourages vegetation to grow,” he said. In some places, a wet winter that promotes lush vegetation can dry out that vegetation and provide fuel the following fire season, ultimately making fires worse.
This weekend, a wildfire in drought-stricken Austin, Florida, spread toward homes, forcing multiple fire departments to help the Forest Service fight the blaze, said Volusia County Fire Department Battalion Chief Scott Smoak. The fire is now 95 percent contained, but he said warmer than normal temperatures for this time of year are a concern because they are further drying out fuels that have built up during an unseasonably wet winter.
He urged local residents to be extremely careful when burning anything and to avoid throwing cigarettes out of windows and parking on grass. “As things stand, we are trying to eliminate the possibility of other fires starting,” he said.
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In other parts of the country, fires tend to be fewer at higher elevations as snow gradually melts over the summer, but as temperatures rise overall due to climate change, more of the snow tends to fall as rain and melt more quickly, which has also been a problem over the past few years, Bendix said.
