It’s a Fire Year, Folks
Fire crews have started their bootcamps, red flag warnings have been issued across California, and for a month now, the sign at a Truckee Fire station on Donner Pass Road has been flashing the annual urge:
It’s never too early
for defensible space
Updated projections for 2026 wildland fire potential were released on May 1, by the National Interagency Coordination Center, showing the California side of Lake Tahoe having above average potential for wildfire beginning in May and continuing through August, which is as far out as the projections forecast, and the Nevada side of the lake having above average potential beginning in June.
The severity of conditions across the state have been building for years, said David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire out of its Sacramento headquarters. But “one strange winter does add its own element.” The time frame for fire season has expanded, and California slips into what Acuña and other fire officials have begun to call a fire year.
The total snowfall during the 2025/26 winter was only about 50 inches below average, but it came in bursts. The upper foothills and higher were sunny and unseasonably warm in January and February, melting the snow from a storm in late December. This began drying out fuels. Then came another big storm and a warm cycle, and again.
“We’ve also had occasional rain, and that’s great,” Acuña said, “but it leads to the eventuality that the grasses [or light, flashy fuels, like pine needles] continue to grow and die.”
This phenomenon isn’t new. Even in winters with less sporadic snowfall, plants grow in the spring and die and dry later in the summer. Wildland firefighters call August “dirty August” because it’s usually when plants have had time to go through the cycle of growth, death, and drying.
Sometimes the fuels don’t burn, though — lightning doesn’t strike, winds don’t blow at the right time, or the fire is put out before it’s burned all the available fuel. “Over time, the fuels have layered over on top of each other,” Acuña said. “Now California is like a haystack of light fuels that are ready to burn.”
Other parts of the U.S., especially the central south, are already seeing wildfire activity. According to Tyler Andrade, forestry field supervisor for the Tahoe Donner Association, these fires are “ahead of the season.”
Tahoe Donner is a Firewise Community where its forestry staff rotate through the nearly 6,500 homes, the common areas, and the trails every six years to ensure the necessary home hardening and forest management are current.
Of particular importance is the association’s southwest corner, which receives the brunt of Truckee’s common southwest wind. “A lot of our focus goes into that southwest corner,” Andrade said, “and making that extremely defended, hardened, and good to go, and then spreading out, working properties and common areas.”
Andrade emphasized the importance of community work as well: “I really do believe that the community’s got to buy in,” he said, “and then you will see individual ownership from there.”
Community ownership and buy-in rose quickly after the 2021 Caldor Fire, which burned more than 221,000 acres in California and caused the city of South Lake Tahoe to evacuate. The fire came within 4 miles of Lake Tahoe’s south shore. As then-Cal Fire Assistant Chief Brian Newman (now retired) told Moonshine in 2022, it was “the biggest event in history in Lake Tahoe.” That remains the case.
This tragedy, which Andrade worked on for the U.S. Forest Service, became “a very large reminder and eyeopener of ‘don’t get complacent,’” he said.
“California is like a haystack of light fuels that are ready to burn.”
~ David Acuña, Cal Fire spokesperson
That said, the Caldor Fire happened almost five years ago.
“I really do believe human nature will always battle with complacency,” Andrade said. “And I really hate to say it, but five years in, there definitely are small things where you look at and you can tell where there hasn’t been a threat or a scare. People start to let their guard down a little bit. People start to forget … I do believe complacency will always be a small narrative.”
Andrade echoed Acuña’s observations about the 2025/26 winter, and urged resident and visitor wildfire education and the importance of “understanding that longer drying periods can create a longer fire season, which makes early mitigation and preparedness even more vital.”
Early snowmelt means public agencies and private contractors can begin mechanically clearing excess fuels sooner, but it also makes the window for prescribed burns — which can only be done in specific temperature, humidity, and fuel moisture content ranges — shorter. Acuña recommends looking at Cal Fire and U.S. Forest Service social media accounts to keep up to date on where and when prescribed burns will take place.
“I wouldn’t say there’s one area that’s worse or better [for this fire season],” Acuña says. “It’s a matter of matching weather conditions with what’s on the ground.”
Half of this equation is controllable, but Acuña says the amount of work that’s recommended for fire prevention is often overwhelming. “If you look at the recommendations, there’s a lot,” he explained. “If you would just replace your roof and replace your deck and replace your siding, tear the whole house down … We’re not asking that. What’s necessary to protect your home is to start with the first 5 feet [around your home]. It’s not a guarantee, but it is moving the right direction. We’re always going to recommend the next step. But just start.”
Alex Hoeft contributed reporting to this story.
