Spring Fire Season Officially Ends;
Conditions Still Ripe for Wildland Fires

Spring fire season officially ended at midnight Monday along with the prohibition on outdoor burning before 4 p.m., but officials with the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) caution that conditions are not ideal and that the threat of wildland fires is still very real.

“While the first of May typically means that the grass is green, the leaves are once again on the trees and we’ve experienced some decent amounts of rain throughout the Commonwealth, that’s simply not the case this year,” said John Miller, VDOF’s director of resource protection. “This ‘green-up’ has occurred in many parts of Virginia, but there are still lots of areas – particularly in the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains of Southwest Virginia – that are just beginning to see these changes. In addition, virtually the entire Commonwealth is in a rain deficit situation,” he said. “So, just because the calendar says that spring fire season is over doesn’t mean that the threat of wildland fires has ended.”

From January 1st through April 30th, the VDOF responded to 878 wildland fires that burned 7,423 acres. Agency employees and members of numerous volunteer fire departments protected 488 homes and 336 other structures. Nine homes and one other structure were damaged.

During the same period in 2006, a total of 1,048 wildfires burned 11,365 acres. Homes protected during the first four months of last year totaled 432 along with 269 other structures. Thirteen homes and 38 other structures were damaged.

While there was a 17 percent decrease in the number of fires and a 35 percent decrease in the numbers of acres burned this year compared to last year, the number of homes protected increased 13 percent and the number of other structures protected increased 25 percent.

“As more and more people move into what were the more rural areas of the state, we are seeing that more people and more property are at risk,” Miller said. “This risk will only continue to grow.”

Debris burning remains the No. 1 cause of wildland fires in Virginia, and Miller urges anyone planning to burn – regardless of the time of year – to properly prepare by clearing the area around the place to be burned; have available sufficient water and hand tools, such as a shovel or rake, and burn only when conditions of high humidity and low wind speed are present.

For more information on wildland fires or how to protect yourself and your property, go to www.dof.virginia.gov or www.firewisevirginia.org.

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The Virginia Department of Forestry protects and develops healthy, sustainable forest resources for Virginians. Headquartered in Charlottesville, there are Forestry staff members assigned to every county to provide service to citizens of the Commonwealth. VDOF is an equal opportunity provider.

With nearly 16 million acres of forest land and more than 184,000 Virginians employed in forestry, forest products and related industries, Virginia forests provide more than $29 Billion annually in benefits to the Commonwealth.