SOUTHLAND'S WET SPRING MAY DAMPEN FIRE THREAT.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

Thanks to a relatively wet winter, Los Angeles will avoid a fierce fire season, a study released Wednesday said.

In fact, after culling 20 years of fire statistics, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said the entire state should see a relatively mild fire season even as much of the rest of the West faces serious brush fire problems.

While praising the study as a potential planning tool, Los Angeles fire officials say they're still wary of what the season could bring.

``We don't try and predict. We prepare for the worst,'' said Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Roland Sprewell. ``These conditions can change at the drop of a hat. Even weather predicting is not an exact science. We go into each season with the worst-case scenario mentality.''

Late rains may have helped push the season back a bit, but it could also add to the problem.

Allen Emerson of the Calabasas-based volunteer group Arson Watch said every season brings apprehension.

``Every agency is concerned about this fire season,'' he said. ``The late rains have created a lot of new growth, and a lot of dead growth. It has increased the fuel load.''

Yet the scientists' study reported that although the brush is dry this year there's less of it to burn.

The team of researchers studied 20 years of fire data along with information about the moisture in soil and vegetation and the amount of vegetation that could burn. They combined those figures with fire frequency and the number of acres burned to calculate their prediction.

``The previous climate tells us how much fuel has been produced and how moist that fuel is, going into the fire season, so that's what's driving this forecast,'' said Anthony Westerling, lead developer of the forecast administered through the Scripps-based California Applications Program.

They said California's biggest wildfire threat comes when two wet winters are followed by a dry winter - leaving plenty of dry growth ready to burn in the summer.

Forecasters said that this year, the northern Rockies, central Arizona and New Mexico should brace for a heavy fire season. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, the greatest danger of wildfire in the state this year will be in eastern California where higher-than-normal temperatures are predicted, coupled with dry fuel.

The Western United States saw a fierce fire year in 2000, the study's authors noted, when firefighters battled 90,000 wildfires that burned 7 million acres and cost $1.6 billion in damages. More than 30,000 people fought the blazes, officials said.

With firefighters pooling resources across the West, researchers hope the study will prove a helpful tool to find potential hot spots and save time and money.

``We hope that the fire agencies will give us feedback and that we get more and we get smarter,'' said Dan Cayan, one of the researchers and the director of the California Applications Program. ``There's a lot to be done. The data is still kinda coarse.''

Firefighters believe the researchers' survey, which drew on fire information from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, is untried and does not accurately pinpoint likely fire hot spots.

They did say the study could help identify potential threats for an upcoming season.

``It could be a beneficial tool to better represent the threats that are going to be out there for the season,'' said county Assistant Fire Chief Herbert Spitzer, who oversees the Forestry Division's Fire Prevention Bureau. ``But nature is a very complex animal. The study is a pretty coarse overview.''