SOLANO COUNTY — Heavy winds and warm weather are two conditions that can spell trouble for fire crews if one sparks, and early this week at the beginning of May, firefighters have already had their hands full.

All day Monday, heavy winds have been fanning flames across the Greater Sacramento region, giving fire crews a test run of what they could expect for the 2025 fire season.

The strong winds forced fire crews in Solano County to throw all the resources they could, putting 70 firefighters on the frontline to extinguish a nearly 17-acre fire on Olive School Lane near Winters.

For Cal Fire's Solano Lake-Napa Unit, that was the ninth fire they responded to just on Monday, which was the start of wildfire preparedness week.

"These north winds are drying out the fuel. Relative humidity is coming down, so it's drying out those fuels and making those grassy fuels more readily available to burn," said Battalion Chief Robert Wettstein.

Typically, late May is when you can start to see some big fires popping up.

For Cal Fire, boots hit the ground earlier than usual to get a head start on prepping for this year's fire season.

"This year is a little bit different," Wettstein said. "Compared to previous years we've had, we've already gotten both, all the southern and northern region units, to be fully staffed and that happened in mid-March."

In 2024, a million acres burned across California.

"We trained over 1,900 new firefighters to strengthen the frontline forces across California, and we continue to expand our aviation program with those aircraft," Wettstein said.

Cal Fire also issued a reminder to be prepared to leave if you are ever in an evacuation warning zone.

They want your safety above anything else. Another tip given is that yard work should always be done earlier in the day.