Rain Dampens Chances of Forest Fire
With warm weather comes baseball, pool days, and picnics but it also brings a higher chance ofbrush fires, keeping fire fighters very busy. In the last week, Dade, Catoosa and Sequatchie counties have all dealt with wild fires- one burning more than 600 acres of land.
The Georgia Forestry Commission was busy last Friday night, fighting this wild fire on Sand Mountain. This fire, was one of their big ones; it burned through 787 acres land over several hours.
"We do have several big ones from time to time. The average wild fire in the state of Georgia is about 5 acres and its normally from debris burning. Landowners burning it and it gets away from them," said Heath Morton.
Heath Morton is the Chief Ranger at the Georgia Forestry Commission in Dade County. He says the biggest cause in the of wild fires in the South is burning debris and that's exactly what caused the fire on Sand Mountain this past weekend. The homeowner has a burn permit and did everything he could to stop the spread of the flames -but it still caused lots of damage. Morton says chances of fire go up its the dryer the ground gets.
"Here in the south, if its dead, we're in our fire season. The forest ranger from years ago used to say when the kudzu's dead, we're in the fire season. When the kudzu greens up, its over," said Morton.
The Georgia Forestry Commission says fire danger today is low. And with any luck today's rain will keep those chances low throughout the weekend. Changes of fire danger range from low, like today, to high, and extremely high. Morton says the are glad for rainy days like this, the water wets everything down and gives them a few days relief from fighting fires that sometimes jeopardize homes.
"Wild land fires are based on relative humidity, weather. When the weather is good, humidity's low and its dry, there's more potential to have forest fires. When its wet, damp, the chances are more slim," said Morton.
As soon as the land dries out from this rain, chances are they'll right back to those days of being in the very high danger zone. In the last week, brush fires have happened in Sequatchie and Catoosa Counties. Morton says, once everything finished blooming, they should catch a break until the end of summer.
