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California Fire Siege
Meteorological Events

• Authorize extended staffing for federal initial attack engine modules (increasing initial attack
capabilities by 30%) and federal Hotshot Crews.

• Authorize the four Southern California Forests to extend staffing to 24 hours per day.

Saturday, October 20
Predictive Services continued to forecast a strong widespread offshore wind event, Sunday through
Tuesday. Saturday started with an onshore wind, but by late that night and into early Sunday morning,
the winds in Southern California gradually shifted, blowing from the north and northeast.

Regional Fire Officers pre-positioned federal firefighting resources including:
Four Type 1 Incident Management Teams
• Five Type 2 Incident Management Teams
• Seven heavy helitankers
• Seven Type 2 helicopters

• Eight heavy air tankers
• Local federal fire officers on the Cleveland National Forest implemented 24 hour staffing.

• Local federal fire officers on the remaining three southern forests, San Bernardino, Los Padres, and
Angeles National Forests implemented 24-hour staffing effective the following day.

Sunday, October 21
The anticipated Santa Ana wind event was under way.

Energy Release Component

The Energy Release Component (ERC) is an NFDRS (National Fire
Danger Rating System) index relating to how hot a fire can burn.
It is directly related to the 24-hour, potential worst case, total
available energy (BTUs) per unit area (in square feet) within the
flaming front at the head of a fire.
The ERC can serve as a good characterization of fire season as it
tracks seasonal fire danger trends. The ERC is a function of the
fuel model and live and dead fuel moistures. Fuel loading, woody
fuel moistures, and larger fuel moistures all have an influence
on the ERC, while the lighter fuels have less influence and wind
speed has none. ERC has low variability, and is the best fire danger
component for indicating the effects of intermediate to long-
term drying on fire behavior (if it is a significant factor) although
it is not intended for use as a drought index. Throughout most of
the Southern region, ERCs had hovered around the 90 to 100%
level from July onward. By late September all but one of the
seven Predictive Service Areas (PSAs) were displaying ERCs at 95
to 100%—at or above the recorded maximum values. Fuels and
slope-driven fires were burning with remarkable intensity and
moved upslope as if they were driven by the wind.

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