03.28.12 Appropriate: Fire Awareness Is Here - FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports

03.28.12 Appropriate: Fire Awareness Is Here

I remember this one time...........no not in band camp, in Stafford Springs Connecticut! I was with my brother and we were burning some brush and cardboard that we were throwing out.  We thought the fire was out so we went back inside to play some video games.  Then we looked out the window because something caught our eye and the woods next door to our house was on FIRE!  We rushed over while calling the fire department and tried to get a head start putting it out on our own.  In the end the fire department put it out and we lost a shed that stored wood, which burnt down.

Like I said before, we thought it was over!  We were wrong. I don't want to make the same mistake in the future and I don't want you to either! Looking back we could have been in much bigger trouble if it was a dry, windy day that day.

The National Weather Service is featuring their Open Burning Awareness Campaign and the rest of this week I will be writing blogs about some fire tidbits in our neck of the woods.

*Courtesy National Weather Service - Burlington, Vermont*

Using the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation the NWS has collected data on how many wildfires they have responded to between 1980 and 2007.  That is not to say those are ALL the fires that have happened, because this is just from the forestry/parks/rec department.

My first thought is WOW!  That's a lot of fires in the span of 28 years.  It's a total of 4,989 fires with an average of 178 per year.  The most fires in one year came in 1985 with 370, while 200 was the least with only 31 known fires reported.  There is a huge peak in April and May, proving that this is the time to think about wildfires and be extra cautious when burning outdoors this spring.

*Courtesy National Weather Service - Burlington, Vermont*

The fire data for New York is for the entire state and was collected by the NWS from the New York State Fire Rangers with a slightly longer data period than Vermont, from 1975-2006. Still though the peak months for these fires has been April and May.

This is because vegetation and brush hasn't greened up yet, which attributes to a higher fire threat.  Once the leaves and vegetation grows, it becomes harder for the fires to burn because the leaves release more moisture into the air, so relative humidities are typically slightly higher and the ground isn't so dry and 'dead' looking after winter.

*Courtesy National Weather Service - Burlington, Vermont*

Here is the distribution of the wildfires on record.  Note that northern New York is a fairly hot spot for these occurrences, especially Essex County in New York with 486 total in that 32 year period.  In Vermont it is a pretty fair distribution, with exception to Grand Isle county which has only had 19 compared to the most of 540 in Washington county.  So these things can happen nearly everywhere in Vermont, but less likely along the shores of large bodies of water, such as Lake Champlain.

*Courtesy National Weather Service - Burlington, Vermont*

I like this image because it shows the distribution of how these fires are starting.  This data is for Vermont, with the most starting from debris (41%).

*Courtesy National Weather Service - Burlington, Vermont*

This data is for New York.  While (percentage-wise) not as many fires were started via debris in New York than Vermont, it still is the leading cause of fires in the Empire State at 33%.

As I wrote in my blog yesterday (Tuesday) the fire threat is a heightened this year because of the dry weather expected.  The National Weather Service releases daily fire threat forecasts for the area, which you can check out here:

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BTV&issued by=BTV&product=FWF

-Meteorologist Steve Glazier

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