Drought Remains And Will Worsen Summer Fires
The numbers are clear: no matter recent rains, continuing drought is making our fires grow quicker on the Fort Peck Reservation. The solution is using EVERY opportunity to reduce unwanted fires, if it rained the last few weeks or not.
For 2021 as of May 21, 35 human- caused fires burned 1,143 acres on the Fort Peck Reservation. One April fire burned 849 acres burned. About half the last 20 years, wildfire burned less acres than that in an entire year. In all of 2020, BIA saw only 77 fires which burned 3,384 acres, 3,044 of them in two August fires. Most of the 15 years before averaged less than 20 acres per fire.
Our main fire season has not even started, but already we are averaging 35 acres per fire. Nature has made our fires bigger.
Firefighters and the land need your help lessen fires. This dry summer, try to not use fire at all unless you are talking with BIA firefighters at 406-768-3666.
May 27 shows a continued rain deficit of 1.75” in Glasgow this year. With the recent rains, some coun- ties around the reservation have rescinded burn bans. Green grass today is not a license to act free-or-easy with fire. Dead grass is still tall.
Outlooks still predict a summer hotter and drier than normal. If you light any fire, you must stay with the ashes until every warm spot is dead out, cold to the touch.
Have plenty of water and machinery ready to extinguish any fire before you light anything — even a cigarette later this summer. As it dries, grass is like the moving hot air of a clothes dryer. Wind or heat gives fire a “Goldilocks” or tipping point when little flames suddenly turn giant, out-ofcontrol and regrettable. When we can’t keep a fire small on a windy day, it becomes harder to contain as we get a much larger fire. Drought snaps that point to us.
BIA Fire will help control larger fires again this year only with help in preventing fires from our children, farmers, teens and other sources of unplanned human- caused wildfires.
