Inyo Supervisors Get Update on 2025 Fire Season
Locals know when Eastern Sierra wildfire fighting entities update Inyo and Mono Boards of Supervisors on the quickly approaching fire season, it’s time to keep an eye out for smoke. Despite a relatively early start to the wet season, the outlook for this year is grim based as much on issues of staffing as on actual conditions.
Bureau of Land Management’s Interagency Fire Officer Lance Rosen and his counterpart at the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, Todd McDivit, along with Jonathan O’Brien, meteorologist and fuel and fire expert for Central and Southern California, made their annual visit to Inyo’s Board last week. While actual conditions are not overwhelmingly grim, issues of staffing are.
The territory covered by the agencies runs from Owens to Topaz lakes, an area that experienced an average of 50% of normal precipitation during the wet season running from October through June. As of April of this year, the snow pack sat at 85-95% of normal. That’s pretty good. The issue is temperatures running warmer than normal as well as fuel moisture levels sitting at drier than normal. In a nutshell: burnable fuels got a good growth spurt from the early season moisture, but have dried out with little to no precipitation since.
As Bob Dylan reminded us, “you don’t have to be a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” But you do have to be one to understand how the high pressure over the Pacific Ocean will impact areas east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Jonathan O’Brien, meteorologist/fuel and fire expert for Central and Southern California, predicted summer temperatures 1-2 degrees above normal, not extreme but the quick melt-off will be morphing into a moderate to extreme draught through the Summer and early Fall months. His descriptive words were “problematic lightning” and “fickle monsoon” in southwest California with both temperatures and fire potential “higher than normal.”
Current restrictions for the Eastern Sierra, as of June 15, are:
1. Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire, campfire, or stove fire, including charcoal briquettes except in the Developed Recreation Sites.
2. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building, within the Developed Recreation Sites, or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable material.
3. Welding, or operating an acetylene or other torch with an open flame.
District 3’s Supervisor Jen Roeser asked if the agencies anticipated restrictions beyond the above. The answer: “time will tell,” with the primary determinant being low staffing levels. The underlying but unspoken recommendation: keep an eye on the skies and pack your go-bag.
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