Wildfire Potential Pt 1

Wildfire Potential Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s been a little dry so far this year, especially in Eastern Washington and Oregon. That has some anticipating another active wildfire season that we should all be mindful of and careful.

University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences professor Cliff Mass agrees, but says it’s no reason to panic …

MASS … “The Spring has been very dry, that is undoubtedly true. But fortunately, we went into it wet enough, and the snowpack was good enough that we’re in pretty good shape really, in many ways, here in the Northwest.”

But after last year, Mass says he understands the concern …

MASS … “So last year, the interesting thing was, you know, we actually started out the Summer wet, and there weren’t many fires until the end really. You know, so that was the interesting thing about last Summer. It was normal, even below normal fires until we got to September and that’s when we had that unusual Easterly flow that, you know, everything exploded.”

But this year, Mass says the grasses are drying out early …

MASS … “It’s late Summer and early Fall where you get the potential for those big, Northeasterly wind events, but the fires, you know, people have to worry about the grass. The grasses and chaparral are drying out now so there could be fires, right. And, to get things to go really explosively, you need the winds as well. So, you need both of those things and that’s typically more to the end of the Summer.”

Tune in tomorrow for more on this year’s wildfire potential and whether or not, this is all a result of climate change.

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