Below-average rain levels and hot temperatures lay ahead in Southern California as the region prepares for peak fire season, while the destructive Palisades and Eaton fires remain fresh in the minds of many Southern California crews.
Southern California has experienced below-average precipitation this year, less than 70% of the typical average in most areas since October, according to the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook, a report issued by the National Interagency Fire Center.
There are signs of coastal marine layers getting weaker, which can contribute to increased fire risk in coastal areas, alongside a continuing drought and large amounts of grass. And the potential for fires is expected to increase steadily as the summer wears on, with an above-average level of large fires forecasted this month and August, according to Cal Fire’s seasonal outlook. The outlook also references lightning, dry wind and possible heat waves as expected triggers for big wildfires.
Fire season has become year-round, particularly in Southern California, but summer and fall are often the peak, when higher temperatures are frequent.
Those higher temperatures, along with dry weather marked by gusty winds, appeared to play a big role in a series of wildfires that broke out over the weekend and Monday in the Inland Empire, the largest being the Wolf fire south of Banning that stood at 2,414 acres Tuesday. Some smaller fires threatened homes Sunday and Monday, respectively, in Riverside and nearby Mead Valley.
“Probably reaching from May through at least November, and particularly in Southern California, it essentially doesn’t end,” David Acuña, a battalion chief with Cal Fire, said in describing the fire year.
Cal Fire has been increasing staffing ahead of the peak period. The agency brought on some emergency personnel in January and February, when much of its existing staff was working the Eaton and Palisades fires, and is continuing to hire. Cal Fire typically employs almost 7,000 permanent staff for incident response and adds nearly 3,000 seasonal staff members, the agency reported in January.
As the agency transitions to a 66-hour work week, reduced from a previous 72-hour schedule, more positions are being added. The shift, an effort to improve the health and wellness of employees by having them work shorter shifts, requires more personnel to accommodate the shorter working hours.
2022 and 2023 saw higher than usual rainfall, leading to vegetation growth, which in turn dries up and becomes fuel for potential fire.
“It’s like California is a haystack, with all of these layers of material that are ready to burn, especially now that it’s getting hotter,” Acuña said.
Vegetation management, done by hand crews, mechanical equipment and prescribed burns, is a priority of the agency as summer begins, especially after the January wildfires in Los Angeles. All these efforts allow the agencies to “mold the landscape” to be more resilient if a fire were to break out, Acuña says.
The Inland Empire
This area, which has seen a good number of wildfires already this year, is likely to see even more activity in mid-July, authorities predict.
Areas in the San Gorgonio Pass near Banning and the Cajon Pass north of San Bernardino tend to burn most years, Matthew Shameson, a meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service, noted.
In the San Bernardino National Forest, which extends well into Riverside County, fire season begins a bit later than other areas, due to the forest’s high elevation. Fires tend to be very slow at over 7,000 feet. In this national forest, more monsoonal thunderstorms occur, but this year they are expected to be weak, occurring later in the year and over a shorter period than is typical, Shameson said.
“If we don’t get a good monsoon, the [areas at higher] elevations have a higher chance of burning,” he said.
The risk of burning is compounded by the lighting that can create fires.
Dead fuel moisture in the San Bernardino National Forest is near to above normal this year, with dead fuels being dried out vegetation or organic matter.
U.S. Forest Service data shows that in the San Bernardino National Forest, over 360 acres have been burned in prescribed burns this year and over 1,500 acres have been treated for hazardous fuels mechanically and through other methods.
Looking at this week, the Fourth of July is a big fire-starting holiday, so the San Bernardino County Fire District will position crews in the county’s north desert and valley areas. Some mobile crews will be ready to be deployed to smaller fires in cities.
The agency has an ongoing fuel reduction program, which has recently completed work in Green Valley Lake and Fawnskin and will now focus on Fontana and San Bernardino.
“I think that we’re doing as much as we can locally here to kind of prepare for what is coming every fire season. We’re all anticipating it to be the worst one every year, so we’re planning accordingly. And as far as long term, we’re building a fuels management program,” said Jarrod Dowden, wildland fuel specialist for San Bernardino County Fire.
In addition to seasonally higher temperatures, human activity also plays a role in fires, whether a vehicle fire breaks out, cooking gets out of control, something at an encampment ignites, or heavy equipment sparks, and that is no different this season, said Shawn Millerick, lead public information officer with San Bernardino County Fire.
“What we’ve seen so far is mostly the typical weather combined with topography combined with human activity,” Millerick said.
Los Angeles County
In the Angeles National Forest, the U.S Forest Service has burned over 200 acres in prescribed fires, and treated over 9,000 acres for hazardous fuels mechanically and through other methods, according to 2025 data.
The area typically sees fires starting earlier in the season than other nearby forests such as the San Bernardino National Forest, due to its lower elevation, said Shameson.
“Our live fuels are about average for this time of year,” he said.
Live fuels are living vegetation that can burn in a fire. The area’s dead fuel moisture levels are near to above normal in the Angeles National Forest area.
Over forest areas, the majority of fire activity occurs in July or August, followed by June and then September — not much activity is seen over forests in the winter or springtime.
Throughout June, hot temperatures only lasted two to three days, but as the summer wears on, an above-normal fire year is expected.
“Usually we’re getting a lot of fires by now,” Shameson said.
As high temperatures become more sustained over time and Santa Ana wind events are expected to blow through the region well before any significant rainfall, “elevated threats will keep going into the fall,” he said.
The Los Angeles area is still deep in recovery from the county’s January Eaton and Palisades fires. As fire readiness remains top of mind for those in Los Angeles especially, the Los Angeles County Fire Department held a news conference to speak about the dangers of wildfire season, focusing on maintaining defensible space around homes.
Orange County
Looking down the barrel of a hot summer, Orange County Fire Authority officials are emphasizing the unpredictability of fire and preparing crews with annual wildland fire training.
“As we all saw in January, the weather can change drastically and that can change things pretty quickly,” Thanh Nguyen, fire captain and public information officer with Orange County Fire Authority said.
OCFA is also working on minimizing the chances of wildfires breaking out.
“We’re trying to mitigate all the hazards that are out there and reducing the chances of a wildfire,” he said.
Nguyen encourages Orange County residents, particularly those who live in fire-prone areas, to maintain fire readiness at all times. They can review OCFA’s resources and keep up with vegetation management. The agency has strict guidelines for builders to ensure that homes are up to snuff in the face of fires and provides free inspections for the community, to help residents figure out what they may need to do to fortify their homes.
“We saw in L.A. that some of those homes (that burned) aren’t even right up against vegetation. The reality is we can have any sort of natural disaster occur on any given day and that people need to be prepared for it. Because we all saw what happened in January. It was just like we needed everybody there all at once. And we can only do our part, but the residents have to do their part too,” Nguyen said.
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