Record heat is forecast for L.A.

Temps could be 30 degrees over average. Officials worry more about health than fire.

- BY GRACE TOOHEY

RONALDO BOLANOS Los Angeles Times THE SUN sets as a hiker travels through Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in L.A. last month.

A potentially dangerous, record-setting heat wave this week is forecast to spike temperatures to the year's highest mark yet, bringing discourse in Southern California back to one of its most infamous concerns: wildfire.

The unseasonable heat this week won't create conditions extreme enough to fuel a fast-moving fire or issue a red flag warning, but local officials say they are gearing up for the possibility of small grass fires — and, if this warm pattern lingers, an earlier start to the region's most active fire season.

"The longer this warm stretch lasts, it's going to speed up the whole drying and curing process," said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Thursday and Friday are forecast to see the highest temperatures this week, with much of the region seeing highs in the 90s and a few spots hitting triple digits, Kittell said. Those temperatures, 20 to 30 degrees above average for this time of year, mark another stretch of unseasonably hot weather, a pattern that Kittell said will probably last for at least another week, if not longer.

There will be a slight cooldown this weekend, before another heat spell is expected right behind it.

"Sometime in that Tuesday through Friday time period, it will probably peak back up into the 90s," Kittell said. "It could end up being hotter [next week] than this upcoming period."

The ongoing heat builds on several weeks of warm, dry, Santa Ana wind-driven heat events since January.