First significant fire this year that I’ve heard of is the Corral Fire in San Joaquin county.
Just the fist of many, alas. I’m sure.
Terrifying thought – what if Canadian and American wildfires joined across the border? Are the American woods along the border as prone to wildfires as the Californian ones?
It has happened:
California has had a much wetter than normal winter with decent (but far from record) snow accumulation, so hopefully another below average fire season, but the much of the Intermountain West is in moderate to severe drought as is much of central Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana, with southern New Mexico being in extreme to exceptional drought conditions. Western Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle are also in high drought conditions. So, expect a lot of forest and fast-moving grassland fires in those areas.
The Corral Fire is notable because it is adjacent to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the built up areas to the east, but it isn’t otherwise a particularly remarkable fire. The current assessment is 30% contained with favorable conditions for control, and the fire is in foothill scrub south of of Interstate 580 where most of the built-up areas are to the north. Fire is a part of the normal propagation cycle of chaparral, and large, high-intensity wildfires are typical of how it burns.
Stranger
Too bad people insist on building where fire is, or should be, endemic.
Oh joy. Zombie wildfires.
Corral Fire’s current status as of this morning is 14,168 acres at 75% containment. I’m about 60 miles pretty much due north of there, and we’re seeing predicted temps over 100 today and tomorrow, with winds in the 15-25mph range. The Weather Channel is calling similar temperatures in the vicinity of this fire, and about 5mph less wind.
Corral seems to be over, but CalFire is reporting a good deal of new activity in the last couple of days. We’ve been on red flag alert for fire weather conditions. The one that’s of most immediate concern to me is about 10-12 miles east of my home. Excelsior Fire started yesterday (16 June) and as of about half an hour into today is up to 877 acres with zero containment just yet. I’m not worried about it reaching my location, since it would have to get through miles of decidedly urban terrain to do it, but am concerned about impact on air quality.
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024/6/16/excelsior-fire
The current biggest problem in the state is the Post Fire, overlapping the boundary between Ventura and Los Angeles counties. As of last update, 2% containment, 14,625 acres burned since this started on 15 June.
I called the Fire Department yesterday to report what might have become a serious event, an incipient blaze in some decorative bark in front of a shuttered restaurant.
This was just around the corner from my house, it looked like someone had tossed a cigarette out their car window and it ended up in the landscaping. The bark was smouldering in several spots, and there were small flames around the edges. I tried to stomp it out, but it was really windy and embers were blowing around, so I called 911.
Luckily the fire truck showed up within a couple of minutes and they dealt with the problem quickly. The embers from the bark could’ve easily set fire to trees in the landscaping and who knows where the embers would’ve ended up.
Yeah, this has been problematic for the last few days around here. The northerly winds are not only warm, but also dry and dessicating to already dry vegetation. In my area the city has closed all greenbelts to prevent homeless camps that may cause fires impacting nearby subdivisions (altho, the paved trails thru the greenbelts remain open to public use). Also in town are the roving goat herds munching their way thru the underbrush - a welcome sight!
If I were in your town, I’d be completely unable to resist trying to pet goats. 
Excelsior Fire is no longer showing as active on CalFire, but there’s a new one not far away from where it was.
News sites verify that Excelsior Fire is out and Douglas Fire is nearly out. However, the Aero Fire in Calaveras County is up to 5k acres in less than 6 hours. There are also unnamed fires in Yolo County (I’m in neighboring Sacramento County) and two small ones in the Sacramento urban conglomerate right near freeways.
This is shaping up to be a rough year.
Yesterday was rough with the gusty winds. Hoping thing will calm down today to let those fire crews get the upper hand all around.
I am going to recommend this book again (as I did in other thread about fire) as a good way for people who are interested to learn just how different wildfire is now from not very many years ago.
I can wholeheartedly endorse this recommendation. My older brother, who was chief of the local volunteer fire department in his Illinois town for many years, has read it and has high praise for it.
Northern California wildfire spreads, with more hot weather expected. Thousands evacuate
Firefighters lined roads to keep flames from reaching homes as helicopters dropped water on a growing wildfire Wednesday in Northern California that has forced at least 13,000 people to evacuate, with another day of extreme heat expected.
The Thompson fire broke out before noon Tuesday about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Sacramento, in and around the city of Oroville, in Butte County. It sent up a huge plume of smoke and grew to nearly 4.7 square miles (12.1 square kilometers) by Wednesday morning. It was zero percent contained.
https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfires-8091a7f73b1765b440f9923d76f8e664
This is even more not good than most fires. We’ve now got one about two hours from my location that started yesterday and is already over 45,000 acres.
And this one has jumped over the course of the day to over 125,000 acres. There’s been an arrest of an alleged arsonist who supposedly started it by setting a car on fire (said car was apparently his mother’s) and pushing it off the side of the road.
Today’s latest (as of about 7pm PDT) has it at over 239,000 acres. Remember, this started Wednesday afternoon (24 July) and I’m typing this on Friday (26 July). What little containment had been achieved yesterday has been lost, currently officially at 0%.
Smoke is headed north and east of the fire and has been reported affecting air quality in neighboring states.
Bad news: this thing just keeps growing very rapidly. Now over 350,000 acres (which is more than the total burned by wildfires in either 2023 or 2022).
Good news: containment is progressing, now up to 12%.