(CNN)The wildfire season "is coming quickly and it's coming earlier."

That's the message from meteorologist Eric Kurth and the National Weather Service in Sacramento, California, as the state deals with a crippling drought and vegetation and grasses that are already beginning to brown.

"We are seeing record levels of dryness for this time of year. It's more like what we would see later in June than mid-April," said Kurth.
He is concerned about this year's fire season on the heels of an extremely dry year in 2020, and the most active fire season that California has ever recorded.

Vegetation is still dormant, making fires more likely. Someone who gets up close to California's vegetation is Craig Clements. He's a professor of meteorology and director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University. He and his students visit various sites every two weeks to take samplings of the plants to study their moisture content. On April 1 they noticed something quite alarming when they went to Blackberry Hill just outside of San Jose.

"April 1 is usually the time of year we have the highest fuel moisture content, and this year they are still dormant because lack of rain," said Clements. "They are stressed and there's no new growth. The plants aren't responding because of the lack of moisture." In fact, two out of the three sites they visited, plants were showing no new growth.

Moisture in plants and new growth are what California depends on to help keep wildfires at bay. When the plants lack moisture, fires ignite much more easily and spread faster.

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