One of the driest years on record in Santa Barbara County — a year so dry that some areas got no more rain than the Sahara Desert — is headed into a dangerous fire season, officials said Thursday.

Land of little rain: Santa Barbara County may be entering a prolonged drought, scientists say. Photos by Melinda Burns / SBN

“It’s going to be real hot out there and the fires are going to be real extreme,” said Brad Joos, deputy forest fire management officer for the Los Padres National Forest.

Already, Joos said, Los Padres crews have responded to 15 small fires this spring from Monterey to Ventura, compared to just two fires by this time, on average. The brush is very crispy, very early, officials said: it doesn't normally get so dry until August.

“This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” said Craig Thomas, operations chief for the Santa Barbara Fire Department. “The entire county — it’s all bad.”

As of today, open fires are banned in Los Padres outside of developed campgrounds and day use areas, and so is smoking.

Hot Shot firefighters demonstrate techniques Thursday in Hans Christian Andersen Park in Solvang. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, has counted twice as many days with Santa Ana conditions this season as normal for Southern California. Santa Anas are winds that come spilling off the high desert, heating up as they approach the coast.

People should not be lulled into a false sense of security by ‘May gray’ and ‘June gloom,’ the thick layer of morning fog that lingers along the coast through the late spring and early summer, Patzert said.

“I think July is going to come in like a lion,” he said. “We’re set up for the perfect summer firestorm.”

MULTI-YEAR DROUGHT

Mary Koenig / SBN

“We are certainly due for another multi-year drought,” said Joel Michaelsen, a UCSB climatologist. “The last one started in 1987. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is the beginning of several years of dry or average years that will put us into a water supply shortage.”

Storms that came out of the Pacific this season were deflected northward to the Pacific Northwest by a large “ridge” or upward bulge in the atmosphere over the West Coast, Michaelsen said.

Hot Shot firefighters form a line to hack a fire break through the dry brush at the park on Thursday. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

Since the 2006-2007 water year began on Sept. 1, Santa Barbara has received only 6.3 inches of rain. That’s the city’s fourth lowest rainfall on record for this time of year since people began keeping track in 1867. The average annual rainfall in Santa Barbara is 18.2 inches.

This water year, it has rained only 5.6 inches in Santa Maria and 3 inches in Cuyama, the third and first driest seasons, respectively, for the year to date in those locations.

For comparison, the Sahara Desert gets between 3 and 5 inches of rain yearly.

San Marcos Pass and Lake Cachuma have received 10.8 and 7.2 inches of rain so far this season, making this the No. 1 driest year on record at those locations.

“I’ve never seen a year this dry from any standpoint,” said Matt Naftaly, the county hydrologist. “Some of the storms this year didn’t even make it across the county. Half the county got wet and half was dry.”

RESERVOIRS UNAFFECTED

For now, local water managers say they’re not worried. Even dry cycles have occasional wet years, and the 2004-2005 season was one of them. Cachuma, the main water supply for the South Coast, was two-thirds empty at Christmas, but it rose rapidly and began spilling during a succession of big storms in January and February. In all, Santa Barbara received 37 inches of rain during the 2004-2005 season.

The following water year was slightly above average, and Cachuma spilled again. That’s why this season, despite the extreme dryness, the lake is down only 9 feet below spill level, said Brett Gray, operations supervisor for the Cachuma Operation and Maintenance Board.

“The storage is enough to last through seven years of drought,” he said.

The Gibraltar Reservoir, which belongs to Santa Barbara, has dropped 20 feet, and the city is trying not to use more of it until a hot spell comes along in the summer. In general, water officials said, Santa Barbara is in good shape.

Ted Adams of Painted Cave, founder of Wildland Residents Association Inc. Photo by Melinda Burns / SBN

A full supply of Lake Cachuma water, however, doesn’t make the dead brush in Los Padres less likely to burn.

Ted Adams, who lives on San Marcos Pass in the Painted Cave community, spoke about the fire danger at Thursday’s event in Solvang, representing the Wildland Residents Association Inc., a fire prevention group he founded 25 years ago.

“We didn’t get any rain early to replenish the moisture in the brush,” Adams said. “We might just as well not have gotten any rain at all.”

Adams presented the County Fire Department with two small chainsaws for cutting brush, two pole saws for reaching into trees, and a blower for cleaning off roads — equipment that the association recently purchased with a federal grant.

Joos told those gathered at the park that the Santa Maria Airport, now the second largest in the state, would soon be able to load as many as three air tankers, the planes that dump water on wildfires.

As reporters watched, a Solvang engine crew and Hot Shot firefighters from the County Fire Department and Vandenberg Air Force Base then staged a firefighting demonstration in dry brush. A helicopter flew over first to check the area. In less than 10 minutes, braving the noon heat and high winds, two lines of crews, one on the “hot” side of the fire and one on the “cold” side farther away, hacked two fire breaks through the brush and hauled in hoses, encircling an imaginary wildfire.

“It’s going to be like this every day,” county Fire Chief John Scherrei warned them. “If you’re in the wrong place, know how to get out.”

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