The declaration allows
authorities to access federal help to battle the dry spell that has left
huge swathes of tinder-dry forest vulnerable to going up in flames.
On Thursday, a massive blaze
raged just outside Los Angeles, damaging several homes and forcing
residents to evacuate the area, where the fire risk had been elevated
for weeks.
Brown urged state residents to reduce their water use by at least 20 per cent.
“I’ve declared this emergency and I’m
calling on all Californians to conserve water in every way possible,” he
said in a statement.
“We can’t make it rain,” he added.
“But we can
be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California’s
drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms
and communities, and increased fires in both urban and rural areas.”
Brown told reporters in San
Francisco that the current conditions were possibly “the worst drought
that California has ever seen since records [began] about 100 years
ago,” media reports said.
The region is suffering its third dry winter in a row, highlighted by the Los Angeles inferno.
California and other western
US states are routinely hit with wildfires during the summer, but winter
blazes, like the ones burning currently, are relatively rare.
California’s rivers and
reservoirs have reached record lows, with only 20 per cent of the normal
average supplies of water from melting snowpack, which flows down from
mountains like the Sierra Nevada.
“Water years 2012 and 2013
were dry statewide, especially in parts of the San Joaquin Valley and
Southern California,” said the state’s Department of Water Resources
(DWR) in its latest drought update.
“Water year 2014, which began
on October 1st, continues this trend. Precipitation in some areas of
the state is tracking at about the driest year of record.”
Farmer Mark Fontanilla was
among dozens of people who staged a protest outside the state capitol in
Sacramento on Thursday, urging Brown to do more.
“You can turn off your taps
and minimise your pool and all that, but until we build more dams and
increase the water storage, and get these clowns out of office, we’re
gonna be importing our food from China,” he told KCRA television.
On average, half of
California’s rain falls in December, January and February, the DWR
noted, lamenting the lack of precipitation but saying it had not yet
given up hope of some this winter.
“It is still too early, however, to call this water year, and Mother Nature may surprise us,” it said.
