We've been watching the wildfires out west with horror most of the summer and so far all this autumn.
Now, in a much more minor way, it's our turn in Vermont to worry about fires. Luckily the threat likely will only last a day or two.
As mentioned in previous posts, the drought in New England has gotten worse this month as we've had virtually no rain since late August.
The weeds and brush have dried out, a process that was accelerated by last weekend's frosts. Dry, fallen leaves are accumulating on the ground.
Today will be another dry day, and the wind will blow pretty briskly. That's a great recipe for starting a brush or forest fire. Forget the campfires, the brush burns and such today, as you could easily start a fire.
This situation isn't nearly as bad as out west. The relative humidity today will be around 50%, not the 10% or less out in some of the western fire zones. Though we're having a drought, it's not as bad as in much of the West. We don't have stands of thousands of dead trees like they have in places like California.
Drought has killed trees in California and weakened many more. Those weakened trees are then murdered by bark beetles.
Still, we in Vermont have to take care today. The National Weather Service in South Burlington says there's a high fire danger statewide today. Not the day to throw cigarette butts out your car window, but then again NO day is the right day to do that. Take care of your own damn litter.
The good news is forecasters are still expected some decent rains around here Tuesday night and Wednesday. While the expected rain won't be nearly enough to erase our drought conditions, at least it will wet things down and limit the fire danger.
No such luck out west.
As reported earlier, hot windy weather has established itself across many parts of the West, and that will continue pretty much all week.
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| WPTZ-TV meteorologist Ben Frechette posted to Twitter this photo of a parched hillside in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, helping to illustrate the current fire danger in the state. |
That snowfall in Colorado early this month did little good. As soon as that cleared out, it turned hot and dry again for the rest of the month out there.
A big blaze west of Fort Collins has become Colorado's third largest wildfire in history. Mandatory evacuations are up for subdivisions in the mountains near the fire. Fort Collins and Denver, among other cities, are shrouded in smoke, causing dangerous spikes in air pollution.
This fire started August 13, but got a lot worse the past couple of days due to high temperatures, low humidity and strong, gusty winds.
Firefighters have been struggling for weeks with fires in northern California. They've gotten to the point of being partly contained. But starting this morning and going through Monday, hot, dry east winds are expected to fan those fires back out of control. New, dangerous fires might also develop under these extreme weather conditions.
At least one new fire erupted in the Napa wine country area early this morning, prompting evacuations.
In southern California, hot, dry, strong Santa Ana winds will make things dangerous most of the upcoming week.
Unlike in Vermont, pretty much no rain is in the forecast for at least the next seven days anywhere west of a line from the Montana/North Dakota border down to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
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