NE WISCONSIN (WTAQ-WLUK) – There’s no other way to put it: the weather over the last month or so has been absolutely gorgeous.
But all this dry, warm, sunny weather has resulted in rising fire danger across Wisconsin.
Wisconsin DNR Fire Prevention Specialist Catherine Koele says we start to see more fuels for those fires as fall arrives.
“A lot of leaves falling down, pine needles falling as well. Folks are gonna be outside, enjoying the beautiful weather, cleaning up around the yard and then choosing to burn those materials,” says Koele.
Equipment such as lawnmowers, all-terrain vehicles and chainsaws are frequent culprits for starting fires because of sparks and hot exhausts.
And with lots of cool, clear nights just begging for a nice fall bonfire, people need to be extra cautious with any leftover ashes.
“The key to that is making sure they’re completely out. A lot of times, people will go to bed with the fire kind of burning and smoldering and then the next day we start to see these elevated conditions — like we anticipate again tomorrow — those can re-kindle and cause a wildfire,” says Koele.
And unfortunately, our dry weather might not end anytime soon. This is a look at how short we are on precipitation over the last 60 days, basically going back to the start of August.
Nearly all of the state is into the orange shades, which means it has had less than half of its normal rain since then.
And it has gotten much worse as we’ve moved into October.
Almost the entirety of northern Wisconsin is in the red shading over the last 30 days, which means it has seen less than a quarter of its normal precipitation.
And notably, almost all of our lakeshore counties are in a similar boat as well.
Moving forward, there doesn’t appear to be much short term relief. The most recent seven day rain outlook as of Tuesday afternoon shows almost no chance for significant widespread rain over the next week.
On top of that, the Climate Prediction Center views the following week out at eight to 14 days as being very likely to have below-average precipitation.
And it predicts that the entire month of October is also likely to see below-average precipitation.
So until our weather cools down or until we can get some rain, our fire danger will likely stay elevated for the first part of fall.
