photo credit: Dreamstime/TNS
CAL FIRE vehicle

As warmer weather dries out the landscape, wildfire threats spike... and there are added concerns this year as federal funding cuts may make conditions worse.

Sonoma County supervisors have declared May as Wildfire Community Preparedness Month, and county spokesperson Matt Brown says the dry season comes earlier and earlier each year.

“We were starting this in July, and then June, and now it's May, and we're already starting to think about wildfire season,” said Brown. “So wildfires can happen any time a year now as the climate changes. We want people to be prepared and get ready for the season ahead.”

CAL FIRE recommends maintaining a defensible space around homes and businesses. Brown says Sonoma County is offering free chipping services.

“It's for anyone in the unincorporated area, you can essentially rent a woodchipper and a crew will come out,” explained Brown. “You have to pile your debris up into piles for them, but they will come out with the woodchipper. It's a good way to get rid of that debris that can become wildfire fuel. Make it more resilient for the wildfire season.”

Details are available at permitsonoma.org/chipperprogram.

Chief Matt Ryan of CAL FIRE's Sonoma Lake Napa unit says preparations for the season are well underway.

“Sonoma County staffing unit went to peak staffing March 24th. So what that means is that we are at 31 wildland fire engines,” Ryan said. “We currently have six bulldozers staffed, seven Type 1 and crews, and our aviation fleet up at Boggs Mountain Helicopter base is staffed with all capabilities. Our fixed-wing assets are coming online on May 15th, so that'll be our fixed-wing air tankers in our aerial supervision platform, the OB-10 Bronco out of Sonoma Air Attack base. And then in June, we are receiving an exclusive use Type 1 Chinook helicopter that is night mission capable for water dropping.”

When asked about his thoughts on Watch Duty, a popular app for wildfire information, Ryan says it is a great tool for the public – but should be used with caution.

“Some information that they're pushing out is not accurate information. And as a fire agency, we're trying to get ahead of that to provide accurate data to the public,” Ryan explained. “Watch Duty is providing data that may not be accurate at the time that they distribute it. And we're in communication with Watch Duty. And truly, it needs to be more of a collaboration and a partnership moving forward. We're able to receive more data to produce a better product and better decision making and real-time information that they may not be receiving when they're pushing out that information. So, there's been conversations with CAL FIRE and Watch Duty. And I think we're just going to continue to grow in this relationship and partnership as we move forward.”

Ryan says there is concern about federal cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also known as NOAA. CAL FIRE uses the agency's services for things like prescribed burning, red flag event planning, and winter flood preparation.

“The NOAA weather reporting, yes, it is a huge asset for us in the firefighting world and for CAL FIRE. But internally, we have IMETs assigned to us within CAL FIRE to support fire activity and incident management team deployments. So yes, there may be some impact, but we are still in close coordination with those National Weather Service stations, the three that we deal with,” said Ryan.

IMETs are National Weather Service Incident Meteorologists who are specifically trained and certified to provide weather support at a fire location, keeping firefighters safe. On May 2nd, five former directors of the National Weather Service wrote an open letter warning that additional staffing cuts could lead to unnecessary deaths during severe weather events like wildfires. President Trump has asked Congress to cut an additional $1.5-billion dollars from NOAA in the 2026 budget.