Drought, Wildfire Risk Back In Vermont

Fire danger in Vermont is back to high again.
Rain last week tamped the fire danger 
down a little, but it has dried out
again. Breezy weather won't help. 

The dampness from the rain we had last week has dried up in Vermont and we're back to our regularly scheduled drought. 

I noticed I was once again stirring up a lot of dust working in my St. Albans yard yesterday. 

The fire danger in Vermont is back to high again, after dropping to "moderate" for a few days after the rain.  

Today won't help. A dry cold front went through this morning, and all it will do is drop temperatures somewhat and make the winds pick up. Gusts to 25 mph or so could fan flames. 

Luckily, the winds shouldn't get extremely strong, so that helps. The humidity will be quite low, but not as low as it can possibly get.

Which means we're not really in a worst case scenario for wildfires today and tomorrow, the but the risk is definitely heightened. 

Make sure you don't send any sparks flying to start a blaze that could spread pretty quickly. No burn piles or camp fires, either. A statewide burn ban remains in effect.

Already, just this morning, I saw a report of a brush fire near the Ben & Jerry's plant in St. Albans. Early reports are that blaze was quickly contained. 

Yesterday afternoon, a reported vehicle fire in Alburgh was spreading into a field. That fire, too, was quickly controlled. 

Tomorrow will be breezy, too, so we won't see any improvements then. 

There has been an increasing number of brush fires in Vermont this month, but luckily all have been contained pretty quickly. At least so far. 

Through September 19, 65 fires were recorded in Vermont this year. As of yesterday, that number had increased to 73. However, only 57.47 acres have been burned so far this year through yesterday. That's just four or so acres more than the total on September 19.  

After sunny, cool, dry weather for the next few days, it will stay sunny and dry, but turn warm again over the weekend and early next week. Warmer weather accelerates evaporation, so that's not good.  However, if ay new brush or wildfires start, I don't see any strong winds to fan flames until maybe next Monday, October 8. 

It still doesn't look like Vermont will see any showers until around Tuesday, October 9. but early guesses are those showers will probably be on the light side.