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Midway through the year, California is now setting more fires than last year, and keeping pace to burn a large amount of area.
As of mid-July, California has seen more than 220,000 acres of burning this year. Over the past five years, we have seen more than 100,000 acres than the state’s averaged states at this point, according to statistics from the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, which includes data from both states and federal lands.
That total still doesn’t include 65,000 acres that were lit Friday in rural mountainous regions across the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County Lines. It also does not include area from three fires launched Monday in Southern California, including a 348-acre gold fire in San Bernardino County.
This year’s surge in fire activity appears to be driven by several major fires in Central and Southern California, including three destroyed in Los Angeles County in January. But even without the unprecedented January fires this year (without Pallisard, Eaton and Hughes), this year will be above the five-year average at this point in the season.
“More of our activities are in the Southern California area, with bigger and more important fires,” agency spokesman Cal Fire Battalion chief Jesse Torres said Monday.
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Northern California, where some of the state’s biggest and deadly fires burned a decade ago, has seen two fires grow on about 20,000 acres near the Oregon border, but the peak fire season has started relatively late. But the unseasonably cool summer starts keeping the average above average for this time of year in many parts of the state’s northern half, Bay Area meteorologists say.
“But every day, the heat and these winds make them dryer and dryer,” Torres said. “You’re more susceptible to ignition.”
That wasn’t the case in Southern California. In Southern California, limited winter rain causes vegetation to dry very early, with some short heat waves already occurring.
“We’re at a critical level below 50% [of moisture] Throughout most of the county and much of Southern California, Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Scott Safechkak said.
Officials now warn that another widespread heat wave in the southern half of the state can further increase the threat of fire across the dry landscape.
Already, crews are fighting these unstable fire conditions in the Gifford fire, with massive smoke being shot in hundreds of feet of air, which collapse on their own, creating unpredictable winds. The phenomenon known as the plume dominant fire has increased the activity and unpredictability of the fire, with crews posing as much of its volatile fire behavior on Monday, and the weather was week as temperatures rose.
“You can see it goes from dark grey [to white] And it starts to close,” Safechuck said of the feathers he saw on Sunday. “It’s going to be heavier than the air and it’s going to come back to itself.”
Gifford Fire, the state’s largest active fire, has spread across the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains since it broke out on Friday, weighing just 3% as of Monday, according to the U.S. Forest Service. It is burning about 15 miles east of Santa Maria, threatening hundreds of people in the area’s rural communities, SafeChuck said.
Experts say a mixture of high heat and high-speed combustion fuels can contribute to the plume-controlled fire. Highs in most of Southern and Central California this weekend and Monday were low in the ’90s, but forecasts show that areas around the Gifford fire could reach the 1000s by the end of the week.
“We’re not a fan of the world,” said Robbie Munro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “Hot and dry conditions can raise further concerns about the Gifford fire.”
The heat wave is expected to push temperatures down to a low 100 in the ’90s within Southern California from Wednesday until at least Saturday, increasing fire risk across the region. Temperatures also rise in most of the state’s inland areas, including northern California.
Last week’s latest highlights. The plants/fuel is very dry and ripe to burn (be very careful of anything that may start a fire). Wednesday’s warm-up is still on track. I’m most unsure about how warming coastal regions will be. #cawx pic.twitter.com/yk1pyegsxv
– NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLOSANGELES) August 3, 2025
Even with more than 1,000 firefighters assigned to the Gifford Fire, authorities have predicted additional growth “as the fire coincides with topographical features along the grass and brushed hillside,” according to an update on Monday. Wind and dry fuel up to 25 mph have been the main drivers of the fire for the past few days, but SafeChuck said it only gets worse as temperatures rise.
“We’ve seen great growth every day since the fire began… because we’re dealing with the fuel there,” says Safechuck. “The fuel is very dry, so the fire is transported very quickly.”
Several evacuation orders and warnings remain around the Gifford fire. It is newly issued near rural and part of the countryside of Cuyama Valley and Southern San Luis Obispo counties, where almost 500 structures are being threatened in nearby agricultural communities.
The fire closed an estimated 60 miles of Highway 166 between Highway 101 and the south junction of Highway 33, the main east-west corridor.
Authorities have opened two shelters for evacuees at Benjamin Foxen Elementary School in Santa Maria and at Kuyama Valley Family Resource Center in Newkuyama.
SafeChuck said he expects continued fire growth on Monday and perhaps the rest of the week, but he said the crew has some advantages northeast. It said the footprints and flames overlap with the Madre Fire, which smoked more than 80,000 acres in the area last month. This year marks California’s biggest fire, burning mainly across federal lands in the Lospadres National Forest, according to California fire statistics.
“The north east side is advantageous for us. There’s no fuel to consume there,” says SafeChuck.
Authorities have reported three injuries from the fire maintained by private contractors, authorities said.
The fire was first reported near Gifford Trailhead in the Rospadres National Forest around 2pm Friday. According to Cal Fire, Blaze had multiple starting points along Highway 166, but the cause is under investigation.
And even if there has been a disparity so far between North and South fire activity, it is likely to change in the coming months, with both areas predicting to see normal to normal fire activity.
“Warm and dry conditions could lead to significant fires from the mountains to Southern California, according to the August outlook issued by the National Important Wildland Fire Probability Outlook.”
And in Northern California, the outlook states that “we are projected to have a potential for a normal, large-scale fire from August to October.”
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