I’m in British Columbia and for months the experts have been saying how bad the drought is here, it’s going to be a rough summer, bad crops, etc. We have had a fair amount of rain the last couple of weeks but I’ve still had to water on the few sunny days. Now tonight they show the wild fire risk is low in most areas or moderate. Precious years it has taken a lot more rainy days to see the risk drop. What am I missing?
In: Planetary Science
Fire risk takes many components into account. Wind, more wind higher risk because it provides more air to fires and spreads embers farther. More humidity makes it harder to ignite material. Rainfall. I worked at a boy scout camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains and we had a fire ranger giving a lecture at the beginning of camp. He talked about day, week, month and year times for vegetation. Small stuff like leaves or pine needles dry out quickly so they might take one day to dry out. Bigger branches perhaps a week. The bigger they are the longer they take to dry out. The big stuff isn’t going to dry out for awhile. Also the growth the season before matters. Wet years build up more vegetation so a drought following a wet year is riskier than a moderate year followed by a drought because there is more fuel laying around.
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