From Weatherwest.com:
In California, the season is quite likely to start out even milder than usual (through at least June and perhaps July)–with the possible exception of the SE deserts, which may see early activity due to extensive vegetation growth from antecedent wetness over the past 12-18 months). If the monster mid-continent ridge and weak monsoon do materialize, though, and progress toward the coast in Aug-Sep–that mild start could rapidly transition toward above-average wildfire activity in California. This is for two reasons. First, there has been a lot of vegetation growth (“fuel build-up”) over the past 2 wet and relatively mild years in CA. There’s very likely more vegetative biomass right now in many parts of CA since before the historically severe droughts and wildfire activity between 2011 and 2020. Second, rapid warming and drying starting in Jul or Aug this year will likely lead to above-average wildfire activity over much of the interior West by mid-summer (and in New Mexico by early summer)–and that pattern will likely shift westward into California by that point. So, the combination of lots of recent vegetation growth (including in some of the large burn areas from the past decade, which will increasingly support re-burns), plus a fairly high likelihood of a hotter and perhaps also drier than-recent-average end to summer and autumn right when offshore wind seasons starts, indicates to me that this California fire season could end very differently than it begins.
Across the interior of the West, elevated fire conditions will likely develop earlier this year than in CA given that the persistent ridging/heat will likely materialize sooner. In western Canada, severe to extreme drought has persisted since last summer, and some “zombie fires” in the boreal forests have even managed to overwinter despite cold temperatures. Unless something changes dramatically and unexpectedly, it’s likely that western and parts of central Canada will see another severe fire season (following on the heels of last year’s historic one). That means that, unlike last year where North America was relatively quiet fire-wise with the dramatic exception of Canada, there’s a higher likelihood of widespread wildfire activity across much of the western part of the continent by July-August. That has significant implications for both smoke prevalence and firefighting resource management.
