Why This Fall’s Santa Ana Season Is One to Watch

What the data actually says, and why “normal” isn’t the same as “nothing to watch.”

On September 1, the National Interagency Fire Center published its wildfire outlook for California through December. For Southern California, the conclusion was straightforward: near-normal significant fire potential.

That’s not the version of this story going around right now — the one that skips straight to “this fall is going to be worse than January 2025.” It’s also not a reason to relax. Both reactions miss what the outlook is actually saying.

“Near normal” means forecasters looked at fuel moisture, drought, temperature, and expected weather patterns and concluded that the potential for significant wildland fires this season doesn’t stand out as unusually high or unusually low compared with a typical Southern California fall. It’s a planning tool, not a prediction of how many fires will start or how much will burn — and in a region where Santa Ana winds and dry brush are baseline conditions every October, “normal” still includes real risk. One bad fire doesn’t need an unusual season. It just needs one ignition on the wrong afternoon.

The part that’s fear-mongering

Nothing in this outlook says this fall is going to look like January 2025. Those fires came out of an especially ugly combination — extremely dry vegetation, offshore winds pushing near hurricane force, and ignitions that landed with immediate access to communities. That’s not a combination anyone can forecast months out, and claiming otherwise in September isn’t reading the report, it’s guessing.

The opposite claim doesn’t hold up either. “Near normal” isn’t code for “every year is worse than the last.” A few pieces of this outlook actually point the other way: most of central and Southern California isn’t currently in drought — the deserts, the backcountry mountains, and San Diego County are the exceptions — and forecasters expect fewer Santa Ana wind events than usual this fall.

The fuel and the wind, not just the headline

That second point is worth sitting with, because it’s genuinely good news. It’s just not the whole picture.

August ran warm across the region, 2 to 8 degrees above normal, with most places getting near- to below-normal rainfall. Live fuel moisture is sitting around 60 to 80 percent, slightly below where it should be for this time of year, and moisture in dead vegetation swung well below normal at the start and end of the month before a brief recovery mid-month. None of that is extreme. It’s still combustible.

The milder wind forecast comes down to El Niño, which is strengthening fast and expected to be very strong by winter. The storm pattern that comes with it tends to send systems dropping straight down the coast rather than pushing inland and setting up the pressure gradients that drive Santa Ana winds — which is why forecasters expect fewer of them this year, and why they currently favor the season’s first real storm arriving before the first Santa Ana event.

Two things keep that from being a clean “we’re fine” story. The strongest wet signal from this El Niño historically lands in January and February, so a wetter winter overall doesn’t guarantee a wetter October or November. And a four-month outlook can say the odds favor rain arriving first — it can’t guarantee the sequence holds. If that first storm keeps slipping later while a Santa Ana setup shows up sooner in the short-range forecasts, the picture changes fast, and at that point the seasonal outlook matters a lot less than what the National Weather Service is saying about the next 72 hours.

Why this fall is still worth watching

Put it together and the honest read is: this is a favorable outlook, not a guarantee. Southern California isn’t broadly in drought. A strong El Niño favors a wetter winter. Fewer Santa Ana events are expected, with decent odds that rain gets here first. Those are all real positives.

But fire doesn’t grade on a curve. Five weak wind events that produce nothing can matter less than one strong one that lands after weeks without rain, and “fewer than normal” lowers the odds of that without taking it off the table. A favorable seasonal forecast changes the odds. It doesn’t change the consequences of the one event that gets through anyway.

What we’re doing about it

The firefighters at Southern California Wildfire Response don’t wait for a forecast to say “extreme” before we change how we operate. On Red Flag days this fall, crews are pre-positioned across the Santa Monica Mountains and San Fernando Valley corridors we cover — watching, not waiting on a page to go out. Two new patrol vehicles are joining the fleet this season, added specifically to put more eyes and equipment in the field when conditions warrant it.

“A ‘near normal’ forecast isn’t a green light,” said SCWR Fire Chief Johnathan Martin. “It means the usual amount of risk is still on the table, and the usual amount has been enough to hurt this county before. We don’t wait for the word ‘extreme’ to get people and equipment into position — by then it’s often too late to matter.”

Crews were already staged in the Valley days before the Palisades Fire started last January for essentially the same reason — not because anyone predicted that exact ignition, but because the conditions leading into it said to be ready. This fall doesn’t carry that same signal. We’re staying ready anyway.

What that means for you

The September outlook shouldn’t change much about how you prepare. Don’t panic about this fall, and don’t relax because Southern California got colored “normal” on a four-month map. Use the quieter stretch for the things that get harder once smoke is in the air — clear defensible space, know more than one way out of your neighborhood, decide what you’d grab if you had to leave, and actually pay attention when Red Flag Warnings go up.

And when the Santa Ana winds do arrive, pay attention to that event, not to what a seasonal outlook said back in September. Southern California doesn’t need an extraordinary season to have an extraordinary fire.

Southern California Wildfire Response is a volunteer wildland fire and disaster response agency serving Los Angeles. Support operations before the next fire at socalwildfire.org/donate. Download LAIT911 for real-time Los Angeles emergency alerts.