Wildland Firefighters Gather To Plan For Bad Fall Fire Season

State and federal forestry officials from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee will meet Sept. 25th to discuss concerns and make plans for what could be a very intense fall wildfire season. Drought and drought-like conditions throughout these states have emergency responders concerned about the potential for more and larger wildland fires that will threaten a greater number of communities.

“Although fall wildfire season typically does not start for most of us until mid-October, we are already experiencing wildfires at a pace that is not usually encountered until late October or early November,” said John Miller, director of resource protection for the Virginia Department of Forestry. “Given the conditions, we could easily have 50 percent more fires this fall.”

While droughts do not cause wildfires, they do impact greatly the ability to suppress and contain wildfires when they do start. The fires will burn longer, hotter and be more dangerous because of the drought. Another concern is the potential of having numerous fires at the same time, which would stretch the limited resources that available to fight the wildland fires.

“In a ‘typical’ fall fire season in this region of the country, most wildfires are suppressed and contained within a 24-hour period,” Miller said. “Because of the lack of rain, it’s quite possible that many fires will be harder to suppress and will likely burn for several days. This will increase the risks to both firefighters and the public.”

Just how dry is it out there? Just a few weeks ago, the US Forest Service reported the lowest moisture levels ever recorded in dead tree limbs the size of a person’s arm or larger.

Despite somewhat cooler weather in the Southeast, dozens of locations completed their hottest August on record. August temperature records from 1936 were supplanted in Louisville and Bowling Green, KY. In fact, August 2007 was the hottest month on record, edging July 1901, in several Southeastern cities, including Louisville (85.0 degrees F, or 8.0 degrees F above normal) and Bowling Green (85.0 degrees F, or 8.2 degrees F above normal). Elsewhere, August 2007 replaced July 1993 as the hottest month on record in Chattanooga, TN (85.7 degrees F, or 7.2 degrees F above normal. Meanwhile, the following Southeastern locations noted both record-high August temperatures and record-low August rainfall: Bristol, TN; London, KY; Danville, VA, and Bluefield, WV. And Southwest Virginia set a record with a string of 19 consecutive days of temperatures above 90 degrees in August.

The meeting of officials from the three states and the federal government will be held Sept. 25th in Kingsport, Tenn. In addition to discussing common concerns they’ll face this fall, the wildland firefighters will work with fire prevention specialists to plan some fire prevention campaigns designed to educate citizens on how they can help prevent wildfires and to protect them against the dangers associated with wildland fires.

-30-

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.