Santa Ana winds and warm temperatures increase fire risk in SoCal

Warm conditions and Santa Ana winds will hit Southern California this week, starting the fall wildfire season in earnest as the region continues to recover from January’s devastating firestorms.

Although no red flag warnings have been issued yet, the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valley foothills will have elevated fire risks once the winds arrive, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld.

October is traditionally the start of fire season in Southern California, as intense winds blow from the east. But this month of October was marked by humid conditions which, according to firefighters, temporarily pushed back the risk of fire.

But November promises to be warmer, even if the conditions are much less severe than last year. Although fire risk has decreased in Northern California due to wet conditions, Southern California still faces risks, UCLA climatologist Daniel Swain wrote on his weather blog.

“I don’t think we can safely declare the fire season over, especially with the arrival of a prolonged period of abnormally hot and dry conditions. Recent precipitation, however, puts it in a dangerous state.” very situation different from this time last year, when some of the driest conditions on record were rapidly developing in the Southland, leading to the devastating fires of January 2025,” he wrote.

The warming trend is expected to begin between Monday evening and Tuesday morning, when winds shift toward Santa Ana, Schoenfeld said. Temperatures in much of the Los Angeles Basin and the Santa Clarita Valley will be in the upper 80s and lower 90s, 10 to 15 degrees above normal for this time of year, Schoenfeld said.

Winds will be mostly confined to the mountains and foothills of Los Angeles County, she said. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory from 10 a.m. Tuesday to 7 p.m. Wednesday for Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire.

Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to be the warmest days, although warm temperatures are expected through the end of the week, according to Schoenfeld. Tuesday and Wednesday temperatures are expected to reach the mid-80s; Temperatures are expected to be in the 70s to mid 80s Thursday and Friday.

Schoenfeld recommended that those living in high fire risk areas review evacuation plans and make sure they have a bag with essential items as wildfire season approaches.

Capt. David Dantic of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said his agency will be constantly monitoring heat and winds this week. Prepositioned response teams were also deployed to the Santa Clarita and Malibu areas.

“I hope it won’t be as hot as we think and I hope we don’t have these winds either,” he added.

Dantic said it was too early to tell whether or not the new growth from recent storms would help in terms of fire risk.

“It depends on what temperature it will be,” he said. “We must always pay attention to factors that could trigger a fire. »

Dantic also said Santa Ana winds now occur year-round and there were also Santa Ana winds in early January, coinciding with the devastating firestorms that destroyed homes in Los Angeles County.

With the exception of January’s wildfires, this fire season has been relatively quiet, he added.

“We’ve had housing starts throughout the year, but nothing compared to what happened in January,” he said. “I think we were lucky. We didn’t have as much brushing activity as usual.”

Swaim said on his blog that returning winds and heat in November and December could increase the risk of fires. But he stressed that “conditions are currently nowhere near the level of exceptional aridity we had from October to December 2024 and no major offshore wind events are currently expected.

Earlier this month, an atmospheric river storm hit Los Angeles with scattered downpours, fears of flooding and powerful winds.

Evacuation warnings were issued for areas affected by January wildfires, including burn scars from the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire in Altadena, the Hurst Fire in Sylmar and the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills.

The storm dumped about 2.17 inches of rain in Bel-Air, 2.10 inches in Beverly Hills, 1.27 inches in downtown Los Angeles and 3.28 inches in Woodland Hills. The last time downtown received more than an inch of rain in a single day in October was 2009, said John Dumas, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

The storm also brought enough moisture to Southern California’s drought-stricken landscape to delay the fire season by weeks or even months, according to Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

In early October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that La Niña conditions had officially returned. The climate pattern typically results in drought conditions in Southern California.

Meteorologists say the previous La Niña, which lasted from around January to April, played a significant role in the region’s dry winter, fueling fires that devastated the communities of Palisades and Altadena.

Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report.