California's fire numbers are down this year. Southern Marin's exposure isn't.

What's happening: The Southern Marin Fire District's 2026 Fire Season Outlook goes before the Mill Valley City Council on Monday. The report leads with two vegetation fires from this summer: one on Strawberry’s Seminary Drive, in unincorporated Mill Valley, on July 11, and one above Hillside Avenue in Mill Valley on July 27, offered as the clearest local evidence of what this fire season looks like on the ground.

According to the district's report, crews contained the Seminary Drive fire at about a third of an acre, protected an adjacent apartment complex, and coordinated a shelter-in-place advisory while the incident was stabilized. Sixteen days later on Hillside Avenue, crews contained a fire that burned about 1.5 acres. The report credits a coordinated firefighting response, combined with ridgetop fuel breaks and vegetation management already completed in that area, with slowing the fire and improving firefighter access.

The numbers: CAL FIRE's preliminary statistics, cited in the district's report and updated through Aug. 3, show 4,279 wildfires and 213,592 acres burned statewide so far this year: down 16.5 percent in fire count and 23.7 percent in acreage from the same point in 2025, and down 23.1 percent in fire count and 51.9 percent in acreage from the five-year average. The report also cites 77 structures destroyed statewide this year and no confirmed wildfire fatalities, drawn from preliminary CAL FIRE data the agency says is subject to revision. That contrasts with 2025, when CAL FIRE's preliminary year-end data recorded 31 fatalities and 16,627 structures destroyed statewide, almost all of it in Southern California under wind-driven conditions.