Due to “extremely” high fire conditions throughout the state of California, including the Santa Clarita Valley, the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region is temporarily closing all National Forests in California.
The closure is set to go into effect Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 11:59 p.m. through Friday, Sept. 17 at 11:59 p.m., according to officials.
However, this order does not affect the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, which is not in the Pacific Southwest Region, according to officials.
“We do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety,” said Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien. “It is especially hard with the approaching Labor Day weekend, when so many people enjoy our national forests.”
By temporarily reducing the numbers of people on national forests, we hope to minimize the likelihood that visitors could become entrapped on National Forest System lands during emergency circumstances, according to officials.
The closure order is expected to also decrease the potential for new fire starts at a time of “extremely” limited firefighting resources, and enhance firefighter and community safety by limiting exposure that occurs in public evacuation situations, especially as COVID-19 continues to impact human health and strain hospital resources, according to officials.
Due to state-wide conditions, any new fire starts have the potential for large and
rapid fire growth with a high risk to life and property.
The Forest Service and our partners are absolutely doing all we can to fight these fires and will continue to do so, but the conditions dictate the need for this region-wide closure order.
Forecasts show that conditions this season are trending the same or worse as we move into late summer and fall, according to officials.
Although the potential for large fires and risk to life and property is not new, what is different is that we are facing record level fuel and fire conditions; fire behavior that is beyond the norm of our experience and models such as large, quick runs in the night; significantly limited initial attack resources, suppression resources and Incident Command Teams to combat new fire starts and new large fires and no predicted weather relief for an extended period of time into the late fall.
More than 6,800 wildfires have burned 1.7 million acres across all jurisdictions in California, and the National Wildfire Preparedness Level (PL) has been at PL5 since July 14, 2021, only the third time in the past 20 years that the nation has reached PL 5 by mid-July — indicating the highest level of wildland fire activity.
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