Crews on Thursday were making progress against the Jim fire burning in Orange County, but officials said the fire’s fast growth provided a grim preview of what the 2022 wildfire season could have in store. The fire ignited around 11:20 a.m. Wednesday in the Holy Jim Canyon area of the Cleveland National Forest and quickly spread uphill, feeding on sunbaked vegetation that has seen little rain since the start of the year.As of Thursday morning, the blaze had burned 553 acres and was 15% contained. Officials said no homes were threatened and no evacuations had been ordered.Nearly 100 personnel — including crews from the U.S. Forest Service, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — were attacking the fire from the air and ground, Cleveland National Forest spokesman Nathan Judy said. “Our firefighters were able to get out and put more boots on the ground overnight,” Judy said. “Today we’ll get more crews on the fire line, building that containment line, but of course it’s going to take some time for us to actually get a line around this fire.”The fire encroached on the burn scar of the 2018 Holy fire, which helped slow its spread along with aerial water and retardant drops, he said. The arson-sparked Holy fire consumed more than 23,000 acres and destroyed 18 buildings.Firefighters on the ground were having to hike through steep terrain to reach the front lines of the flames, Judy said.The fire’s rapid growth — from 10 to 400 acres in its first three hours — could spell trouble for the fire season ahead. A record-dry start to the year in California, coupled with extreme temperature swings, is priming the landscape to burn. “Nowadays, it’s year-round fire season here in Southern California,” Judy said, noting that crews have already battled several unseasonably early wildfires this year, including the 154-acre Emerald fire near Laguna Beach and the Sycamore fire near Whittier, which burned only 7 acres but destroyed two homes. “Not just the Forest Service, but all agencies are having fires in California — it doesn’t matter what time of year it is,” Judy said. “If the fuel is receptive, which it is, it just takes one spark to start a wildfire.”Though January and February are typically the heart of the wet season in California, the two-month stretch this year was the driest ever recorded in most of California. What’s more, parts of Orange County in recent days have experienced record-breaking heat, including 90 degrees in Anaheim on Monday, when the city was the hottest place in the nation, and again Tuesday.Crews were banking on an incoming cool weather system to help quell the Jim fire Thursday into Friday. The National Weather Service said the system moving in from the Gulf of Alaska could lower temperatures significantly and offer the chance of rain and mountain snow.The cause of the Jim fire remains under investigation, Judy said.