E. KY Fire Season Set to Break Record

The Kentucky Division of Forestry is moving every spare firefighter in the state to eastern Kentucky and preparing to request assistance from other states as it braces for the worst fire season in 20 years.

You thought the drought was bad here in the Bluegrass; east of I-75 it's been at least Severe and usually Extreme since spring.

Fall fire is a tradition in eastern Kentucky, as the Daniel Boone National Forest goes up in flames every October. Dry conditions are usually enough to set it off, but you've always got a few jokers eager to see what happens when you drop a match into a pile of dessicated leaves.

It's been a while since we've had a call-in-the-out-of-state-reinforcements outbreak of fire in Kentucky; I remember one in the early '80s that raged close to I-64 and cast a pall of smoke that made it almost impossible to drive through.

And conditions then weren't remotely close to this bad.

From a Division of Forestry press release:

Extreme drought conditions have led to increased fire activity in the region over the last several weeks, straining firefighting resources, said KDF Director Leah McSwords.

"Many of our firefighters have been working for 15 to 20 days straight and now need some relief," she said.

(SNIP)

With little to no rain in the forecast for eastern and southeastern kentucky for the next week to ten days, the KDF is not only repositioning its own resources but also is taking steps to ensure that aid will be available from other state and from federal agencies.

The fall 2007 fire season is shaping up to be one of the worse in the last 20 years. There already have been 1,536 fires this year, and October and November are historically the peak months in the first season.

MacSwords said that the severity of conditions has heightened the danger that fires pose to firefighters and citizens. Fires are burning hotter and moving more quickly. putting people and property at greater risk, she said.

We're lucky in Kentucky that our forests are mixed deciduous and evergreen, and a good distance from population centers, unlike the live matches of pine forest surrounding subdivisions in California.

But drought-driven fire in Kentucky is likely to become more, not less, common in the future, and the heavy economic costs - immediate destruction, firefighting costs and long-term damage to the Forest - will soon become an annual, rather than once-in-20-years, burden.

Global climate change is so tricky. Just when you think it means more hurricanes, it sneaks a catastrophic fire up your ass.

Cross-posted at BlueGrass Roots