This week's rainfall does little to curb fire season

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KTVU) - This week's North Bay rains, drenched a lot of burn areas as well a a lot of areas yet to burn, but won't likely impact fire season.

 "It's just gonna be a brief reprieve and a break for us for a couple of days. But what's gonna happen is, it's gonna hat back up in the coming days.  It's already starting to and then we're expecting some possible gusty wind conditions toward the end of the week," said Cal Fire's Captain Amy Head. 

In Santa Rosa's Coffey Park, at noon Tuesday, it was already into the 70's with even warmer temperatures forecast for the weekend. "Grass dries out extremely quickly. It can dry out in an hour in the right conditions," said Captain Head.

In round numbers, looking at California's all-time top five fire years, 2018, with more than 1,360,000 acres burned, already ranks third; but the fire year has months to go. So, we could see the all-time record this year. In fact, Cal Fire will keep counting burned acres until the end of December, some three months away, because Southern California's fire season is now year round.

"October is traditionally and historically one of the most dangerous months,"  said Captain Head.

In fact, when one considers the number of structures burned, seven of California's top ten fires occurred in October.  And, the three deadliest fires also occurred in October So, says Captain Head, fasten your seat belts, have your go bags packed and be ready to evacuate on a moment's notice.