96% Properties At Risk For Wildfire Damage In Santee: Report

SANTEE, CA — Last year, 8,835 wildfires in the Golden State leveled 3,629 structures. As California anticipated a dry summer, authorities geared up to defend houses and businesses around the state from potential fires.

Some 80 million properties in the U.S. are at risk of exposure to wildfire, according to a new model and report from the nonprofit First Street Foundation. About 16 percent of the nation’s population lives in areas prone to wildfire damage, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of the group’s data.

California was identified as one of the states with the highest wildfire risk.

In Santee, 13,299 properties were at risk for wildfire damage over the next 30 years, representing 96 percent of all properties in Santee.

Overall, Santee has a major risk of wildfire over the next few decades, according to First Street’s Risk Factor website.

Extreme drought conditions and rising temperatures contribute to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in the Golden State. This year, 1,734 wildfires have already scorched 7,464 acres, according to Cal Fire.

January’s extended dry spell was expected to continue into the spring with little precipitation, leaving most of the state in moderate to extreme drought conditions before summer. Dry conditions with above-normal temperatures through spring will leave fuel moisture levels lower than normal, increasing the potential for wildland fires, according to CalFire.

The 2022 fire season officially kicked into high gear when a wildfire in Orange County tore through some 20 homes and hundreds of acres last week. But experts said that fire season is more likely a year-round event nowadays.

“Summer in California no longer means the beginning of fire season. Rather, it means we are about to enter the roughest six or so months of a fire season that never ends,” said Bill Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and head of The West on Fire research project, according to USC News.

“Drought and the increasing effects of climate change come together in creating the likelihood — even the certainty — of bigger, hotter and more catastrophic fires year to year,” he said.

A significant lack of rain in recent months will likely set the stage for a dangerous fire season, meteorologists at AccuWeather predicted earlier this month.

"Unfortunately, in a nutshell, it looks like it’s going to be another busy season," he said. "We’re seeing a lot of drought. Almost half of the country is experiencing drought and the bulk of that is to the west," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Samuhel said, adding that AccuWeather forecasters "are expecting an above-average fire season."

Samuhel said he expects the 2022 season to burn 9.5 million acres of land across the western U.S. — 130 percent of the five-year average and 140 percent of the 10-year average.