Southern California fire chiefs cautioned Friday that a season of devastating wildfires is all but guaranteed, amid parched conditions following a dry winter. <\/p>\n
The warning, delivered at the L.A. County Fire Department\u2019s headquarters in East Los Angeles, is a stark reminder of how endless fire season can feel these days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can never let our guard down,\u201d said L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, who helped lead the region through the January wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, killed 30 people and cost billions of dollars.<\/p>\n
He called another season of destructive fires \u201cinevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronnie Villanueva, the Los Angeles Fire Department\u2019s interim chief, said his firefighters are yet again on high alert for brush fires after months of light rainfall left heaps of dried vegetation ready to serve as kindling.<\/p>\n
He encouraged residents to make their homes as fire-resistant as possible, getting out the weed trimmers, clearing roofs of leaves and digging under decks for dead vegetation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe simply cannot have a fire engine in every driveway,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n
As they spoke, the chiefs from fire agencies across Southern California were flanked by green, yellow, white and red engines, as a reminder of their mutual aid agreement. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can assure you when that 911 calls come in and the fire is burning, there\u2019s smoke in the air, these firefighters operate as one,\u201d said California Office of Emergency Services Fire Chief Brian Marshall.<\/p>\n
Santa Ana winds will soon return, the chiefs said, emphasizing that residents should have evacuation bags ready to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s going to burn,\u201d said Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner. \u201cBecause Southern California burns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern California fire chiefs cautioned Friday that a season of devastating wildfires is all but guaranteed, amid parched…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[22531,12884,1582,276,22532,12768,316,22533,2961,22537,224,22538,2444,5337,11449,5950,22534,2549,22536,22535],"class_list":{"0":"post-25176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alert","9":"tag-brush-fire","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-dry-winter","13":"tag-firefighter","14":"tag-home","15":"tag-interim-chief","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-light-rainfall","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-fire-department","20":"tag-los-angeles-times","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-resident","23":"tag-season","24":"tag-severe-wildfire","25":"tag-southern-california","26":"tag-stark-reminder","27":"tag-vegetation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114768147274268639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}