California gearing up for worst fire season, Gov. Jerry Brown says

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) -- California is gearing up for the worst fire season ever, according to Gov. Jerry Brown.

Speaking at a climate change conference on Monday, the governor said global warming is causing longer and more destructive fire seasons, and the trend will only get worse.

"We have twice the forest fires in California this year than we have normally. In addition to that, our fire season is 70 days longer than historically. And that means we need fire crews on all the time," said Brown.

The state has 5,000 firefighters and a budget of $600 million to battle fires. Brown says, with climate change making the weather hotter, that may not be enough.

CAL FIRE went to peak staffing in the beginning of April. Normally, they do it in the middle of May.

"The conditions we see now, we haven't seen in decades," said Capt. Mike Mohler with CAL FIRE.

Fire season is just beginning, and we're already on a frightening pace. Eleven major fires scorched tens of thousands of acres in San Diego County last week.

Southern California is unique in that local, state and federal firefighters often work side by side to battle brush fires. The departments pool their resources.

"We design the inter-agency cooperation model. What that means to citizens is they should know we have the ability to reach out, either through local agreements or federal state-ordering offices, and get the resources we need to fight fire on the ground," said Inspector Tony Davis with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The U.S. Forest Service says it can pull resources from different parts of the state and country to support firefighting efforts in Southern California, just like it did with the recent San Diego County fires.