Jason Kraling sank his fingers deep into the spongy soil on Mount Laguna Saturday and pulled out a fistful of dead leaves, brittle pine needles, shards of wood and rich brown soil.

“Look at how moist this is,” said Kraling, a fire battalion chief with the U.S. Forest Service. “We’ve gotten a reprieve from how dry things were last summer. It’s a good time for prescribed burns.”