By Mary O’KEEFE

Almost all of California can celebrate the end of the long drought. I hope everyone takes a moment to look out over the green mountains, enjoys the California poppies in full bloom, breathes in (hopefully without too much sneezing) the flower blossoms … but only take a moment because the next minute must be focused on this year’s fire season.

California seems to be that kind of state that keeps people on their toes. We seem to always be waiting for an earth tremor, weird weather, red tide, jellyfish and now jellyfish-like creatures invading beaches. Yep, according to KTLA, these “jelly-fish blobs known as by-the-wind-sailors” (technically Velella velella) are washing onto Southern California shores by the millions. And, according to scientists, this is perfectly normal. They may look like the dreaded Portuguese man o’ war but they are not poisonous; however, if you touch them you should wash your hands before touching your face due to the possibility of getting a slight skin irritation.

But the real things that Californians throughout the state must always keep foremost in their minds are wildfires. We may think that with this rain we are really out of fire danger but due to the rain, we now have even more vegetation to worry about.

As the summer months bring less-to-no rainstorms, these beautiful green hills will begin to dry and die. And more vegetation creates more fuel for fires. For years the traditional fire season was September and October after the hot summer months; then, during the drought, fire season was basically year round. Fire departments have yet to go back to the traditional fire season and this September and October will be the time for exercising extra caution.

Fire department representatives have been reaching out to communities to talk about brush clearance and to let residents know that inspections will be much more far-reaching. The new fire zones, which have been released for most of LA County, cover just about all of the Crescenta Valley area but also include areas of Burbank, Pasadena, Sunland-Tujunga and areas of Los Angeles. And there will be more inspections that occur after direction from new laws become available.

Now normally this is where I would inject some kind of science fiction reflection or go into the changing climate that has caused our changing landscape, but the fact is we are now living in the world our science fiction writers warned us about. From “Waterworld” to “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Snowpiercer,” we are seeing the blur between what we thought was ridiculous to what we is happening now; however, because I am a true Trekkie, I have an optimistic view that at the midnight hour we will come through. We will work together to form a federation of understanding that celebrates the value of diversity, admit that in the past we have made some monumental mistakes and realize we are stronger when we work together. Yep, it is getting harder and harder to be a true Trekkie.

For our weather, we are looking at May-gray/June-gloom … in April. There was some predicted rain in a few spots last night through this morning with some areas seeing up to a 10^th of an inch of rain. By Friday we will see some clearing with not as much of a chance of drizzle, then over the weekend it should be sunny with temperatures in the 70s. Next week we will be heading back into gray-drizzly weather, according to Eric Boldt, NOAA meteorologist.