September's warm, sunny skies have brought back two words that Northlanders haven't seen in a while: fire danger.
The Minnesota Interagency Fire Center today issued a reminder that many areas of the state are bone-dry.
With Saturday the start of archery deer and small-game hunting seasons, state wildfire officials are asking hunters to be extremely careful with ATVs, campfires, chainsaws and smoking. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will have full wildfire crews on duty in some areas this weekend.
Duluth has had only a single rainfall this month, about one inch, and now sits 1.5 inches below normal. After an unusually wet August, drought conditions that took hold in June and July now seem to be returning.
While Minnesota has seen its quietest wildfire summers in years, it only takes two or three weeks without much rain for conditions to become ripe for small fires to grow large quickly, especially on windy afternoons.
ADVERTISEMENT
Parts of Koochiching, Itasca and Aitkin counties remain in dry or drought conditions, with a swathe of severe drought stretching from the northern Twin Cities suburbs north and east across Wisconsin. Almost all of Wisconsin is in some sort of drought category, according to the National Drought Monitor.
The National Weather Service in Duluth is forecasting little or no chance of rain until Sunday night or Monday, and even then it's only a 20 percent chance.
