Once summer begins to dry out, as it now has, the risk of fire grows. So far this year we've been free of brush fires, but the luck might not last. Winter and spring were so wet that the fields and forests are full of new chaparral, all of it just waiting for a spark. I don't like brush fires. They are so hard on the bushtits, for one thing.
(yes I wrote that just so I could say "bushtit." My sense of humor is very juvenile.)