BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Could Bakersfield see a catastrophic urban wildfire, like the devastating ones we’re seeing down south in Los Angeles County? You bet we could. 

Atop the list of things that tend to make things ripe for wildfire are dry vegetation and high temperatures. But we’re seeing something now, a third factor, high winds.

The urban wildfires now devastating Los Angeles County have been driven largely by winds that in some cases have reached hurricane force.

We in Kern County know all about high winds – certainly in the 40 mph range and above. Although they’re not common, they happen frequently enough for emergency services personnel to maintain a healthy fear of those conditions.

It was only one year ago – Jan. 31, 2024 – that winds gusting to 52 mph blasted through Bakersfield, uprooting trees and sand-blasting cars. In terms of wildfire tragedy, few events exceed the toll of October 2017, when high sustained winds fueled the Cottonwood and Willows fires, killing two dozen horses. 

So, yes, though Bakersfield has not experienced anything on the scale of what LA County is seeing now, it’s certainly possible here.

“Wildfire is always a concern,” said KGET meteorologist Elaina Rusk. “Unfortunately, for so long we’ve thought of it as a summer thing. It’s dry and it’s hot in the summer, that’s when we have fires. Now we’re learning it’s really a year round thing. And for the last few decades, with our climate changing, any weather pattern that brings very dry conditions and fast winds like this you know you have that fire environment.”

So, what are we, in urban residential settings in the valley, supposed to do in preparation? Pretty much the same thing we’re supposed to do during summer fire season, according to Bakersfield city Battalion Chief Alexander Clark. He says the possibility of urban wildfire is the new reality.

“We’d really like to hope that it wouldn’t (happen here),” Clark said, “but we’ve seen over the years that – if you look at the Paradise fire and Santa Rosa, California – there’s instances of fire that we didn’t ever expect that are happening more and more commonly.”

Are we seeing our own climate change-driven future in Los Angeles right now? We’d better prepare, just in case we are.