Santa Barbara County Fire Department preparing for wildfire season

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – As the warm weather approaches, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department is preparing for this year's wildfire season.

"We are doing exactly what we are doing every year," said Santa Barbara County Fire Department Public Information Officer Captain Daniel Bertucelli. "Every spring, we have an annual wildland refresher training for all of our firefighters to just kind of go over some of the lessons learned from the last fire season."

At this time, the County Fire Department is fully staffed.

Captain Bertucelli said this year was pretty dry in Santa Barbara County and that can be concerning. Last year, more than 4 million acres were burned in California.

"It is a significant increase than what is normally burned at any given summer," said Capt. Bertucelli. "My concern is not that this summer will be more intense, I am concerned that we have not had a lot of rain this winter."