Just when we were starting to relax

Wildfires 2007: Cal Fire: “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

Amid all the increasingly optimistic reports coming out on the county’s various fires comes this cautionary note from retired Cal Fire Capt. Fred Daskoski, recalled to duty for this firestorm:

Partially contained fires are just that — partially contained. And time may not be on the firefighters’ side.

“Until we can get some sort of control line around these fires, it’s still a major hazard,” he said. “There a possibility of a new high-pressure system coming into this area in the next couple of days.”

With that renewed high pressure could come renewed high winds and low humidity, the conditions that helped the county’s mega-fires make their destructive runs in the first place, Daskoski said.

“It could actually blow some of these fires out again and we could be right back to where we were,” he said. “I just hope people don’t get back into their homes and let their guard down. We’re not out of the woods yet.”