By Rachel Ramirez | CNN

Wildfire exercise in California has been notably low this 12 months, consultants inform CNN, notably in comparison with 2020 and 2021 when devastating wildfires erupted throughout the state and burned tens of millions of acres by the point summer time ended.

California has had a number of extreme fires this 12 months, together with the Mosquito Hearth, which continues to burn east of Sacramento.

Nevertheless, after damp spring climate and funky temperatures delayed the onset of peak hearth exercise, the state’s general wildfire exercise has been “surprisingly benign,” mentioned Craig Clements, director of San Jose State College’s Hearth Climate Lab.

“However we’re not out of the woods but,” Clements advised CNN. Scorching and dry offshore winds, also known as the Diablo or Santa Ana winds, can set off an unlimited wildfire menace, and the wind phenomena don’t have a tendency to start out till the autumn and winter.

“If we get these large offshore wind occasions in Southern California just like the Santa Anas, the Diablo winds in Northern California, these might result in larger fires,” he mentioned.

In response to Cal Hearth Battalion Chief Jon Heggie, wildfires have burned round 365,000 acres up to now this 12 months in California, which is properly beneath the year-to-date acreage burned lately. In 2021, greater than 2.5 million acres had burned via August, whereas 4.3 million acres had burned in 2020.

Heggie referred to as this 12 months’s burned acreage a “dramatic” drop from earlier years.

But California stays in a multiyear megadrought which has drained water provides and primed the vegetation for landscape-altering wildfires. Drought circumstances are current in 99% of the state, in accordance with the US Drought Monitor; circumstances scientists say are a part of the explanation California has seen an uptick in hearth exercise lately.

Clements pointed to 3 issues contributing to this 12 months’s below-average hearth exercise: luck, firefighting methods and day-to-day climate.

Spring introduced favorable climate with cooler temperatures and a few precipitation, however summer time introduced hotter and drier climate. California noticed one in all its worst September warmth waves on file earlier this month, which stoked the state’s present lively fires, together with the Mosquito Hearth which has burned greater than 76,000 acres and has develop into the biggest within the state up to now this 12 months, in accordance with CalFire.

“Whereas local weather change has its fingerprints throughout these bigger fires, it’s day-to-day climate that drives hearth conduct,” he mentioned.

Daniel Swain, a local weather scientist on the College of California in Los Angeles, famous though much less acreage has burned up to now this 12 months, particular person wildfires have been fairly lethal and harmful. This 12 months’s fires have killed 9 individuals and destroyed greater than 800 buildings, in accordance with Cal Hearth.

“When individuals speak about this, they’re typically speaking concerning the acreage burned and truly not solely does it not inform the entire story, but it surely arguably doesn’t inform most of what’s essential about why we care about wildfires in a societal context,” Swain advised CNN. “Simply because the acreage burned has been lower than lately, the impacts of those fires have really nonetheless been actually excessive.”

And whereas the acres burned are decrease than the final 5 years, Heggie mentioned hearth circumstances in California can change shortly because the seasons transition.

“It might probably change very quickly in California, and so regardless that we’re beginning to consider that as a transition time, we’re nonetheless remaining ever-vigilant, and we encourage the general public to do the identical as properly,” Heggie mentioned.

Janice Coen, a scientist on the Nationwide Heart for Atmospheric Analysis, advised CNN regardless of the summer time’s excessive warmth and dry circumstances, the explanation there has not been a significant outbreak of fires individuals out West would count on, is as a result of not all circumstances have been current on the identical time.

“Although there have been loads of ignitions throughout the nation, there hasn’t been the alignment of circumstances to permit very lots of them to develop massive,” Coen advised CNN. “It’s potential that issues will change. We’re heading right into a interval when a special sort of fireside is probably going, so we might even see extra exercise in Southern California than we have now” up to now.