Where's this year's fire season?

Done this post in another forum on another http.
Do the weather conditions, fuel loads and other factors: Where will be the hot spot for 1999's Fire Season?
Other forum indicates possible southern half of the US, from California to Florida. What you gut feelings?
Have fun...

I think that, according to predictions and seeing that fires are already burning in Florida, Texas and the southwest, it would appear that that is where the problems might be for most of this year. Bear in mind that fires come and go in cycles. Most of the west has had a slow to moderate fire season for a few years now. The northeast has been exceptionally lucky for many years experiencing some small to moderate sized sporadic drought driven fires. The exception was on Long Island, NY.
The woodlands of the northeast are choked with overgrowth, dead-down and dead-standing fuel loading.A sustained drought with winds could bring a fire siege to this area. It is long overdue if you look at fire cycles.
One can only guess when it comes to predicting where nature and her cleansing tool of fire will strike.

RMW

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When trying to assess the potential for fire in the northeast, one is seriously hampered due to the major influence of short-term weather. For the last five years, the NE has been plagued by very wet springs, followed by severely dry summers. This has caused some atypical fire seasons. However, for what it is worth, NJ has been able to conduct prescribed fire operations this spring on well over 20,000 acres; more than we have been able to do for years. (Pretty good for a small, "urban" state where the RxB program is basically limited to public lands...)
We feel this may herald a return to the more traditional spring fire season. Needless to say, I'll let you know for sure in June!
Meanwhile, I'll be keeping my camera handy.

How about Colorado. More specifically Jefferson County. In teh last month we have had a 300 acre fire and several other fires including a 40 acre fire that endangered about 12 structures. I think were the hotspot
this year.

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Shadow

Not so fast! This year's fire season has just begun. The south and southwest are already burning in spots and predictions are for an extremly active fire season. The potential for "the big one(s)" along the Red Zone and the Front Range of Colorado is present during fire season. Let's wait and see what happens.

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Way to go....Just to keep things interesting .."Let's Go For The Cup"...errrr..."Glass"..
"I'll tell ya what I'm going to do!"...(a statement we all love to hear).. I'll, with the help of SWIDFCWINS (if he is willing to help), keep track of all the predictions made until the end of September '99, and I will give the person closest to the actiual area, based on NATIONAL NEWS REPORTS or with the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT, from
National Interagency Coordination Center, from Boise....A PRIZE....

Examples: Of HOT SPOTS 1988 YELLOWSTONE.
1990 Idaho
1992 Idaho again in McCall Area
1996 Southern California, and Colorado
and 1998 Florida..

PRIZE....Nothing Special... just Yer very own O'fish'L...Hilbille Shot Glass..
I'll tell you now, it's different than any 'shot glass' you ever had...

And if you are the Lucky Winner, your name will also be given to the proper authorities for investigation into any unsolved arson fires in your area..just to keep someone from trying to get a head start on everyone else. Fair enough?

[This message has been edited by Captain Hickman (edited March 17, 1999).]

The high plains(SD,ND,MT,WY& NE) may be active this year. We have had a dry winter and so far not much for snow cover. Last week we had up to 18 inches of snow. Tuesday all area deparments were fighting wildland fires. We had three at once in our district with two being interface fires of aprox 1 acre and 15 acres. Our neighbors to the south in Nebraska had a 60,000 acre prarie fire. This may be another year for using all available resources in the areas mentioned by the other respondents. We may see what affect the budget cuts have had on overhead teams that used to be available for almost any major incident.

From Australia here ,we were due to have our biggest fire season here in years this season,hardly any rain in winter ,we started off with a large fire in october (our summer is from December-March) elnino effect due to bring high winds and we had nothing every year we get at least a couple of big fires but not this year,the only large fire we had was in bushland with no threat to property or life was in Januaray about 70,000 acres,we usually have at least 8 big fires but nothing this year

You can never count out the state of California. History has shown that California is traditionally a hot spot with the influx of homes into the Urban Interface. Check out the website of the CA Dept of Forestry and Fire Protection at http://www.fire.ca.gov/

And don't forget Alaska

The Interior had very little snowfall and its looking like an early spring.

I expect our people caused season to start here in Fairbanks within 3 weeks.

The lightning season is always wide open.

Heck of a deal..Been a month since I posted a question and only have 7 replys. Must not be very many fire fighters out there wanting to make a prediction on this years season...Or are you waiting for it to really get hot?

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Hey Capt. not much in to predicting fires, but our rural district in Southern Idaho has been busy already this year. We have not had much of a summer fire season the last couple years so this might be it. There is lots of stuff left over from the last two years. We have a lot of sagebrush and wildland ground in our district. So maybe this will be the year.

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P. Bishop

Don't know about other areas if the country, but here in Florida, We are under a state of Emergency for brush fires. With in the seven days, there has been numerious fires on the East coast, There were ( last word ) 25 homes burn'd. 66,000 acres. I live in the central area of Florida, The brush fire that happened 2 days ago, they closed the Sun-n-Fun Fly-in. I was involved in fighting the fires in northern and eastern florida, last
year...spent 10 days in the field..My guess is that Florida will be the hot spot this year. There is still a lot of area, that could go....no offence to anybody...

The fire season in southeast Mass. has just started. We are overdue. Last major fire was in 1964. Much white pine, pitch pine in our area. Similar to Jersey pine barens and Long Island. Two weeks of dry weather, wind out of SW and temps in 70's and 80's will create severe conditions until leaves come out. Even then the danger exists in the forested areas. Much housing development in last 30 years will compound the problem

Charlie:
Since we both live in this region and knowing the past fire history of it, I can agree with you. This region of Massachusetts is long past overdue for the "Big One." The area's Fire Departments are very good at controlling SWI fires through the use of early detection (via the states DEM fire tower observers), brush breaker operations and learned tactics/strategies. A great mutual aid system and rapid response completes the fire protection system that usually contains most of the wildland and SWI fires in SE Mass.before they get completely out of control and burn up structures. We are fortunate to have this system in place. At the present time (4/22/99) we are very dry.This year's fire season will be active all over the country. It already is and it has just begun.

SWIDFCWINS

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Lets not forget Virginia. Here in Northern VA we have had brush fires ranging from 100 to over 1500 acres. My unit mutual aids with a tanker and firefighters and my folks are getting there fill of pract.ap. on this subject.

Stay safe
Ed

Just an update; on Fri., Apr 30, we experienced a fire across Wharton and Bass River State Forests that consumed 11,285 ac.
The fire was reported at approx. 1315 by three fire towers in central NJ, and was declared contained by 0730 the folowing morning. This is the second largest fire we have experienced since 1977, surpassed only by the 20,000 acre Greenwood fire of Apr. 1995. We were fortunate to have experienced no injuries and no loss of improved property.
Interestingly, this fire burned over the area where we lost four firefighters in 1977.
We expect our fire season to continue through at least mid-May.

Well girls and boys it is now raining in the northeast and we are all getting a needed soaking. During the last month we have had some significant wildland and SWI fires. One of those fires took the life of a deputy fire chief in the small western Mass. town of Russell on April 8th. It has been a busy spring fire season. The really "Big One" never did happen in southeastern Mass. as was everyone's prediction around here. If we are truly in a weather pattern of drought in the northeast, this summer and fall could become very busy. It could dry out and we could become very busy once again this year.

Be very safe out there. It can get dangerous very quickly.

RMW

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[This message has been edited by SWIDFCWINS (edited May 04, 1999).]

But, it's only May, what's going to happen during the rest of the Summer? Could it dry out again?

You can't pass over Ontario and Manitoba. We have large forest fires burning in both provinces. The area is tinder dry. Numerous communities have been evacuated already and a ban has been placed on open fires for most of Ontario.things are bad from Windsor all the way to Kenora. That is about 2000 kilomteres or 1250 miles. The southern areas are greening up a bit but the ground water is 12 feet low, and the moisture isn't getting to the root system for the tree's. This is the dryest we have been scince they started keeping records. We just may have you all beat this year. But I hope not.
Be safe
John in Ontario ( Canada )