Park Fire reminder of changing climate's impact on far Northern California

Climate scientist Daniel Swain says Butte County has become a “poster child” over the past decade for what can happen when a warming climate triggers extreme summers and winters.

The Record Searchlight reached out to Swain before the Park Fire started for insights on the record-breaking heat that enveloped the North State this summer.

The number of days in which the high temperature in Redding reached at least 110 degrees set a record this year. Redding's daily high temperature in July reached 110 degrees 12 times, as of Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

Swain said, too, winters have become warmer overall and that has caused an increase of what he calls “precipitation whiplash” — more rain falling in the winter months and less precipitation in the spring and fall.

He said Butte County, especially the area around Oroville, is “a bit of a poster child” for this weather phenomenon.

This whiplash potentially means less water available throughout the year due to less precipitation in the spring and fall and year-round warmer temperatures, Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA's Institute of Environment and Sustainability, said in an email to the Record Searchlight.

With the Camp Fire (2018), Bear Fire (2020) and Dixie Fire (2021), Butte County has experienced “an incredible alternating sequence of historic/catastrophic wildfires and drought,” Swain said.

The Park Fire, which started Wednesday afternoon in Chico’s Upper Bidwell Park in Butte County, had burned nearly 180,000 acres and destroyed 134 structures as of Friday afternoon, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is zero percent contained.

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The massive smoke plume from the fire could be seen all the way down the Sacramento Valley as far south as Dunnigan.

Brent Wachter, a meteorologist for the Northern California Geographic Coordination Center in Redding, told the Record Searchlight that the moisture level in live and dead fuels ― limbs, pine needles, leaves, sticks and other plant material on the forest floor ― are at low levels because of the record-breaking high heat this summer. The center provides fire weather information for fire agencies throughout the region.

Wachter said the rainy weather during this past winter and spring hatched another fire danger problem in Shasta, Butte and other North State counties.

"The other game changer, and it's certainly being experienced on the Park Fire, at least initially, is the amount of dead grass that we have. We had a really big green up period in late winter and early spring. And it left us with an abundance of dead grasses, and it's very continuous," Wachter told the Record Searchlight on Thursday.

Meanwhile, climate change and Redding’s location at the northern tip of the northern Sacramento Valley, fueled the catastrophic 2018 Carr Fire, Swain said. Redding is surrounded on three sides by mountains, so there is nowhere for the heat to go during long, hot summer days.

Winds during North State heat waves can create a “blow torch effect,” which Swain said fueled the Carr Fire, along with record heat and low vegetation moisture.

“In a warming climate, places in and near the northern Sacramento Valley will likely face three major threats that are unfortunately pretty familiar for residents already: increasingly intense/prolonged heatwaves, more severe wildfires, and increased flood risk during wet years and from increasingly moist individual winter storms,” he said.

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on X, formerly Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Park Fire shows how extreme weather can cause major wildfire threats