California Frets Fire Season’s Early Start

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Californians normally are treated to a kaleidoscope of colors this time of year as spring rains give rise to wildflowers and verdant hillsides, the Wall Street Journal reports.


But following one of the driest March-May periods on record, the predominant color in the Golden State’s wildlands is brown — and that is fueling an unusually early start to the state’s fire season.


Already, firefighters have been deployed to more than a dozen wildfires, including a massive conflagration in the rugged Santa Cruz Mountains above here that broke out on May 22 and scorched more than 4,000 acres and 31 homes before being declared under control Wednesday. State officials are so concerned about the potential for fire damage this year that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order mobilizing California’s firefighting resources in early May. Normally, the fire season begins in June, but doesn’t really get going until late summer.


But the real battle for the “Terminator” star and his staff isn’t against Mother Nature. Forests and brush have burned with nearly clock-like regularity for thousands of years. The fight, instead, is with the humans who insist on moving into fire-prone areas — and other regions buffeted time and again by natural disasters that people soon forget.

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