The general view is that June will be cooler than normal, but a major reversal will occur late in the month. leading to very hot and dry conditions for much of the state in July and August.

From Dr. Swain: Extreme wildfire conditions have unfortunately emerged, as predicted, in interior British Columbia & Alberta as severe to extreme drought continues. Notably, substantial portion of fires currently burning appear to be overwintering “holdovers” from record-shattering 2023 season.

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Glenn McGillivray

@ICLRCanada

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16h

Fort Nelson braces for ‘last stand’ as high winds expected to push wildfire toward town https://energeticcity.ca/2024/05/12/fort-nelson-braces-for-last-stand-as-high-winds-expected-to-push-wildfire-toward-town/ via @energeticcity

https://plan.readyforwildfire.org/en

Click to access FirePreparednessEventPoster2024-FINAL-1.pdf

Click to access Agenda-May-8_2024.pdf

Redding, CA, April 30, 2024— The Shasta-Trinity National Forest is planning a prescribed burn of 555 acres for May 2, 2024.  The prescribed burn will occur approximately 5 miles northeast of the community of McCloud and about a half mile from the Mt Shasta Forest subdivision.  This will be the second broadcast burn entry in this project, the last broadcast burn having occurred in 2017 and 2018. 

The objective for the prescribed (broadcast) burn is to create a patchy mosaic pattern to improve and protect forest health and vigor, recognizing the natural role of fire in the ecosystem.

We will have a public information officer on-site and I would be happy to share your contact information so they may stay in contact with you and share updates as needed.

If you would like May 2 updates or check-ins, please reply to this email with your preference for communication and I will make sure to pass your information onto our on-site information officer.

Ruth Esperance Public Affairs Officer Forest Service Shasta-Trinity National Forest p: 605-381-5111 ruth.esperance@usda.gov www.fs.usda.gov Caring for the land and serving people

This electronic message contains information generated by the USDA solely for the intended recipients. Any unauthorized interception of this message or the use or disclosure of the information it contains may violate the law and subject the violator to civil or criminal penalties. If you believe you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.

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.