Seasonal rainfall in the Santa Cruz Mountains, like much of California, is only at about half of normal levels.
Fuel moisture content in the region has reached below record levels and researchers with the San Jose State Fire Weather Lab now say the outlook for the 2021 fire season is "grim."
CAL FIRE division chief Rich Sampson in the Santa Cruz Mountains said he is not surprised to hear that.
His unit has responded to five brushfires in the past week.
"For us, it’s kind of abnormal. Normally we don’t have fires like this until we get to end of May and into June. And what was even more abnormal was the first four of them required us to bring in helicopters to put water on the vegetation," he said.
"I’m not going to come out and say this is going to be the worst fire season ever, but I fully expect this is going to be an interesting fire season."
Three of the fire were related to burn piles, including one case where people were burning trash.
"We use burn piles as a tool in the rural areas and we want to be able to continue to use that tool," he warned. "People need to be able to follow the rules and they need to be using common sense and be very careful when they use this tool or else we’re going to lose it."
