Bernie Andersen's job is getting more dangerous by the day.
Andersen is the fire management chief for the Kentucky Division of Forestry, and this triple-digit heat and extended drought have made much of the 12 million acres of woodlands in the state a tinder box.
"We're very concerned," Andersen said. "We've got about two-thirds of the state now in severe drought -- in Eastern and Western Kentucky -- and the middle part of the state is in moderate drought. We're having fires that we normally wouldn't have this time of year."
With an outlook of below-average rainfall for the next three months, the Division of Forestry has recalled its fire crews from helping battle massive wildfires in the West and Deep South in order to prepare for possible service on Kentucky fire lines.
"We don't want to be alarmists, but … it can happen here. They would have never thought it could happen in Texas or Oklahoma where they lost hundreds of homes, and fires killed people and burned right into Oklahoma City. Georgia would have never thought that they'd have a 500,000-acre fire earlier this year."
The Division of Forestry and the state National Guard are making fire-contingency plans. Extra training is under way, and equipment is being added. More aerial detection is planned if conditions worsen. Firefighter vacancies are being filled as fast as possible.
Fodder for flames
Heavily forested Eastern Kentucky is traditionally the hot spot for wildfires in the fall, but the danger is increasing statewide with temperatures remaining near record levels and the wind picking up on most days.
"It saps the moisture out of the soil and trees, and they'll burn quicker and with more intensity," Andersen said. "Our big problem is, we have houses everywhere, and we spend more of our time trying to protect houses than we do putting out fires."
The Division of Forestry is encouraged that several counties have imposed outdoor burning bans and that the state's more than 700 volunteer fire departments are able to put out most grass fires before they burn out of control.
"To have this many of them at this time of year is kind of scary," said Mike Harp, the fire-management program specialist. "Not many people probably remember our bad season back in 1999-2000 … but we're actually ahead of the numbers of fires we had back then, which is one of those big red flags."
Harp said the soil can get so dry that fires may burn underground, unnoticed, for several days in the root systems of dead trees, then re-emerge beyond the fire line.
"Sometimes it may take a week, but it just slowly creeps through the root until it gets to where that root is close enough to the ground that, bam, it starts again," Harp said. "I've tracked them back where I could dig the trail up and find where it followed that root system out 100 feet past our fire line and just kept on going."
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