“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.”
~ James Taylor

What a week! When the La Tuna Fire really took off, I was in the La Crescenta Vons parking lot. The temperature had climbed beyond the 100 degrees mark, and while smoke billowed, cumulonimbus  clouds competed for atmospheric height. It was a beautiful, but ominous sight, to behold. With a crack of thunder, rain began to fall. Was it the electrically-charged energy around me or just my obsession with weather and other natural phenomena? I knew for certain, as my groceries were being loaded, this Labor Day weekend was not going to be an ordinary one.

Weather-wise, the stage had been perfectly set for the ignition of a brushfire. The 2016-17 rainy season was a bountiful one, encouraging vigorous and heavy vegetation growth. The already dense chaparral hadn’t burned in 40-plus years. Friday afternoon, amid a sweltering heat wave, low humidity and light winds, the biggest fire in LA City history broke out.

Outside and inside a fire weather is a factor. Weather helps create a fire and, in turn, fire creates its own weather. Fires need oxygen and high winds form when air is pulled in. Dangerous tornadoes – “firenados,” also known as “fire whirls” – occur, spreading burning material and causing further damage from their winds. Clouds called pyrocumulus often form above fires; they are capable of creating rain and lightening. So, you can see the complex cycle!

Relief from the heat wave came for firefighters on Sunday when temperatures dipped and rain fell in some burn areas. No weather or climatic related event is complete without words from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert.  

“The moisture that damped down the fire [Sunday] was from Tropical Storm Lidia,” he said, adding, “That was a gift from … Lidia.”

Patzert said September is “the heat wave month,” so the risk of other fires will

persist as brush, grasses and other vegetation continue to dry out.

“The simple formula is that fire equals fuel, plus ignition, plus meteorology,” he explained. “The rainfall we did have (last rain season) really encouraged the brush and especially the grasses. So we were primed for fires all over the Southland. And we’re definitely not done. The fire season is the Santa Ana winds season and, historically, that’s October, with November being the peak of the old fire season.”

Thanks, Bill!

“Write a request for rain, please,” a friend asked of me. Will a trough of low pressure off the West Coast suffice? It’s expected to encourage cooler, near normal temperatures and overnight fog and low clouds into the valleys. Come Sunday, a few monsoonal driven thunderstorms are also expected to add a bit of moisture; unfortunately, it will be in the form of humidity. So, I am afraid rain is out of the question … for now. (Sorry, Robbyn B.)

A large high-pressure system – once again – is predicted to reassert itself and push westward on Monday and Tuesday. This will kick off a warming trend and will reduce the marine layer clouds. Right now it looks like Monday will be the warmest day with temperatures four to eight degrees above normal.

Here, in the Crescenta Valley, daytime highs will likely reach into the 90s. The best weather-news is … the nighttime temperatures will be cool – in mid 60s! Almost a week ago, the mountains were aglow as flames leapt against the night sky. An eerie orange-tinged moon was just setting as I left the CV Park recreation center at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The thermometer read 88 degrees!  

Remember, our fire season is just beginning.
Sue Kilpatrick is a
Crescenta Valley resident and
Official Skywarn Spotter for the
National Weather Service. Reach her at  suelkilpatrick@gmail.com.

  Sue Kilpatrick