“Our season is already in full-swing. We’ve had 4 or 5 significant fires since last week.”
That’s Asotin County Fire Chief Noel Hardin talking about all the fires that popped up last week. Two were in Asotin County. One was a grass fire behind a home on 13th Street, and the other was in a valley near homes in the Quail Ridge Golf Course area.
Hardin says this year’s temperatures rose earlier than normal and that’s causing backyard fuels to be ready to burn.
“We’ve got some real tall grasses, short grasses, cheat grasses. They’re already cured out here in the valley, so they’ll burn right now. We get a little bit of wind behind them, higher temperatures, low humidity, and that becomes explosive-type fire conditions.”
Hardin says the burn season is closed to reduce the chances of fires getting out of control, but that doesn’t include campfires and recreational fires…yet. The word could come down any time that those fires are also banned because the danger is just too high.
