海角大神

As federal, state, and local officials tour California touting Wildfire聽Awareness Week, the message is a sobering one: this is already shaping up to be the worst fire season on record.

The statistics are grim. In January of 2013,聽the state reported fighting only a handful of fires. In January of this year, there were 437. Perhaps most telling is that the fire season, which traditionally shuts down for the winter,聽has simply never ended since a year ago.

鈥淲e鈥檝e just continued right into the next season with no break,鈥� says Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire.

So far this year, 鈥淐al Fire has already fought 1,244 wildfires, and that鈥檚 triple the average for that period of time,鈥澛燯S Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell聽said at a press conference in San Diego Tuesday, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 not going to get better over the course of this year.鈥�

The state鈥檚 historic drought聽and overall climate聽shift are two significant factors underlying聽these trends. The聽annual snowpack measurement, determined in the spring when officials head up to the Sierra Nevada聽to gauge just how much snow runoff聽to expect for the rest of the year,聽is聽only at some 18 percent of normal years.聽Add to聽that an unusually warm April, with some temperatures in the three digits, and the snowpack聽has begun to melt faster and earlier than聽usual.

But this year, officials are going to great lengths to emphasize聽that some 95 percent of fires in the state are caused by human activity 鈥� either intentional or accidental 鈥� from untended campfires to overgrown vegetation around homes.

鈥淭hat means 95 percent of all fires can be prevented,鈥� said Cal Fire鈥檚聽director, Ken Pimlott, at the press conference.

Firefighting costs have also hit new highs,聽forcing the state to聽draw on emergency funds to supplement its firefighting budget of more than $1 billion. Since July of 2013, some $130 million has been tapped from the state emergency fund. Cal聽Fire鈥檚 Mr. Berlant says the agency estimates it will have spent some $212 million in additional emergency funds fighting fires by the end of June of this year, when the fiscal year wraps.

"We're in a season that is not necessarily the norm from the past but may be becoming the norm of the future," he said, adding that聽 鈥渋t is absolutely critical that residents be prepared for wildfires.鈥�

Recognition that extremes may be fast becoming the new normal聽 is producing far more coordination between local, state, and federal officials 鈥� and helping to accelerate innovations that mitigate losses during extreme events such as wildfires and hurricanes.

鈥淛ust the understanding over the past couple of years has changed,鈥� says Darren Hammell, co-founder and chief strategic officer with Princeton Power Systems, a New Jersey-based advanced technology company. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing more government planning and just聽popular understanding that these changes are real,鈥� he adds. 鈥淧eople need to prepare for them because they are not one-time events but part of a trend.鈥�

His company has produced a portable power grid that it brought to San Diego during the fire season two years ago. Dubbed a 鈥渕icro-grid,鈥� this enables crews to have power in remote areas during the worst of the fire fighting and can also be used as a community gathering point when power is out.

Communication has always been key to better disaster control, Mr. Hammell says, though he is quick to add that while mitigation is important, the most important shift may be in changing people鈥檚 willingness to prepare.

鈥淭he costs of disasters are mounting,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut it is much better to pay the costs up front in preparedness than after the fact in losses.鈥�

Taking responsibility for behavior during fire season was a theme that California Gov. Jerry Brown hit hard in a Monday press conference, urging people, for instance, not to throw cigarettes out their car window. A good general rule might be, he said, 鈥渄on鈥檛 do stupid things.鈥�