Santa Cruz County wildfire season continues without major incidents, but local fire marshal urges caution

Central Fire District Fire Marshal Mike DeMars says this year’s wildfire season has been relatively uneventful in Santa Cruz County, and if all goes as it has been, the season will end that way as well. 

“Overall I think we’ve had a good fire season so far,” he said. “We’ve been really pretty productive with our fire prevention efforts and have not had any major wildfires [locally].” 

Central Fire District serves communities between the Santa Cruz Harbor and the northern Watsonville border, including Aptos, Capitola and Soquel. The district has seven fire stations where at least three firefighters are on duty daily. Central Fire District is one of the county’s 11 different fire departments, also including the City of Santa Cruz Fire Department, Watsonville Fire Department and Scotts Valley Fire District.

While Santa Cruz County has avoided serious incidents, other parts of California have battled large fires, and the outlook for the remainder of the year continues to look like high fire risk. 

So far this year, more than 5,755 fires have burned 838,576 acres across the state, according to Cal Fire; one person has died and 1,247 structures have been destroyed. About half of those burned acres was from a single fire – the Park fire in Butte and Tehama counties that started July 24 and was 99% contained as of Thursday. 

This same time last year, just 4,747 fires were reported and 255,144 acres had burned. 

Cal Fire officials expect a potentially “longer and more intense fire year” compared to the past few years due to several factors: more vegetation from a wet winter and a hotter-than-usual June drying out that vegetation and creating fuel for fire. 

Generally, DeMars said, wildfire season runs from April to December. He urges people to not forget the fire risk at this time of the year, when mornings can start to get cold again. 

“Don’t think that fire season is over because the weather is getting cooler,” he said. “Depending on the weather conditions, the fire season can be extended further into December.” 

So far this year, however, he said Central Fire District officials have noticed that property owners have been particularly prepared and have been responsible for cleaning up dead vegetation around their homes, trimming trees, weeds and other combustible debris. 

DeMars said it could be due to the district launching its wildfire preparedness program earlier this year to raise awareness among residents about cleaning their properties as the wildfire season started. He added it could also be due to the challenges property owners face in keeping their insurance. 

“Throughout the state of California, [insurance companies] are dropping policies on homeowners who live in the rural or wild land areas,” he said. “So people are trying to do anything they can to impress upon their insurance company that they’re keeping their property as clean and safe as possible so they can keep their policies active.” 

DeMars said “the best thing” property owners  can do to prepare for a fire is cut down and remove vegetation from around their homes because dry vegetation is fuel for fires. He said between 30 feet to 100 feet of space between a home and combustible vegetation is recommended. 

To best prepare, he added that people should download the CruzAware application on their phones to stay up to date on any fires or other disasters in their area. 

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