Look Out Southwest, Plains States: Severe Wildfire Season Ahead

March 16, 2006 — -- The continuing drought in the Southwest and the Central and Southern Plains foreshadows a severe wildfire season this spring, federal weather and fire management agencies predict.

The National Interagency Fire Center's Seasonal Wildland Fire Potential Outlook says the potential for wildfires will be above normal for Southern California, the Southwest, and the Southern Plains all the way to Florida.

"Drought will very likely persist or even worsen until the thunderstorm season arrives this summer," said Ed O'Lenic, chief of forecast operations for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NIFC doesn't predict the number of acres that might burn this season, but it does assess how wet or dry the winter has been, and how much foliage there is with the potential to burn during dry weather.

"Fire potential" does not always become actual fire, says Robyn Heffernan of the agency's predictive services office.

But the ominous prediction comes as a series of wildfires race across the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma. Today most of Oklahoma is under a red flag warning of critical fire danger, with winds of 20 to 25 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Conditions improved today in Texas, however, where winds have dropped to below 10 mph, from more than 50 mph on Wednesday.

Despite recent rain and snow in the West, the fire season is off to an early start, and at 930,000 acres, burning roughly nine times the seasonal average so far this year.

This comes after the record-shattering 2005 fire season, during which 8,686,753 acres of land burned, though that total reflects an unusual number of grassland fires.

Wildland fires have scorched a large amount of territory for the past several years, particularly since 1999 when nearly 6 million acres burned, and 2000, when fire burned nearly 8.5 million acres.