05/04/07 Fire Season Heating Up

Fire season heating up. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. While it's still a few weeks away, the time will soon be here for fire season. It's that time of year when outdoor burning is allowed in select areas and accidental fires can quickly become devastating regional catastrophes. Many fires can be prevented according to Brian Ballou with the Oregon Department of Forestry. BALLOU: Keep their burning projects relatively small and to be very watchful of their fires while they are burning and then when they're done to make sure especially that their burn piles are dead out because one of the nagging problems with open burning fires is when they are not completely put out then the next dry, windy day the ashes tend to kindle again and off it goes into fresh fuel and pretty soon we've got a fire of some consequence. That is a direct reflection of the old Smoky Bear slogan, Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires. Of course not all fires are caused by people but according to Ballou the most frequent fires are caused by humans just not paying close enough attention. The northwest has had considerable amounts of rainfall this spring which stimulates growth of grasses and weeds. Ballou says that once summer weather hits that spring growth adds to the fuel source. BALLOU: We're going to have a summer where you get a lot of grass fires, a lot of fast moving fires that are probably going to nag us all year long. So it's still going to be a concern in the front end of summer especially when people are still doing a lot of open burning; burning their fields and property lines. There can also be financial consequences to fires. According to Ballou the cost is covered if it is proven to be just an accident during a legal burning period but: BALLOU: If you are doing some burning or mowing when those activities have been shut down due to fire danger then you could wind up paying some or all of the costs of fire fighting. Those costs can be significant. BALLOU: If it goes on into threaten homes, if it goes into forestland where the trees have great value to an adjacent property owner then it really runs into a lot of money in a hurry because then we're going to be bringing in aerial resources like helicopters and bombers to try and stop the fire as fast as possible. We're talking millions of dollars here and yes, criminal actions can be brought as well Monday, more with Brian Ballou on the coming fire season. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.