Officials expect ‘normal’ fire season
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:59 AM PDT
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| A United States Bureau of Land Management firefighter stares at a backburn in this 2005 file photo. Area fire managers say the 2008 fire season is starting slow, but residents should expect summer blazes to erupt at some point. |
ONTARIO - So far, it has been a cool spring, and the wildfire season may start slower than in the past few years, but area forecasters are still predicting a normal fire season this year as temperatures start to ramp up as summer begins.
“What we expect is for July and August to have normal and above normal temperatures and below normal temperatures,” Dan O’Brien, fire analyst with predictive services at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, Portland, said.
A normal fire season for Oregon and Washington is 1,600 to 3,300 ignitions with 125,000 to 400,000 acres burned, he said.
Robin Heffernan, predictive services meteorologist, United States Bureau of Land Management, echoed O’Brien’s remarks.
“We’re looking for a normal fire season,” she said. “We’re not expecting to bring a lot of outside resources in.” She added the local resources will probably handle most, if not all, the blazes.
Heffernan, based at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, noted there will be fires across the region because hotter temperatures typically spawn more lightning.
However, for now the fuels are still pretty moist and green, as snow in the lower elevations has been slow to melt, and there is still a fair amount of snow in the higher elevations.
“I think it will be slower to ramp up,” Heffernan said about the fire season. “We’re starting to warm up.”
While the temperatures at the first of this week have been above normal, Heffernan said they would be back in the normal range — lower to mid-80s — by this weekend.
The fire season has already started in some places, such as New Mexico and California, she said.
O’Brien said a fire in central Oregon was ignited when a dump fire got out of control north of Chiloquin and burned into the forest, claiming more than 400 acres.
In the Vale BLM district, Mike Morcom, fire management officer, said there is a mixed picture, as fuels in the lower elevations have dried and are ready to burn, while grasses in the middle and upper elevations are still moist and green.
However, with the fuel load in those upper areas, and if it stays hot and dry, the district could still have a busy fire season.
“They are cured and at risk,” Morcom said, referring to the lower canyons of the Snake and Owyhee rivers and lower rangeland.
A lot depends on the amount of lightning the region receives, he said, and another concern is human-caused fires, particularly around July 4.
