Please don’t burn our forest.

Email from Roger, our Fire Chief.

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note as the fire season down in the lower elevations kicked off very quickly with new fires starting, seemingly every day. The fire danger down in that part of the state has become extreme.

For now, this appears to conflict somewhat with our spring so far having a cool first half of May with even a little precipitation. The front end of the traditional fire season for us has been mild which is great, but it is heating up and things are drying out as we do move toward higher fire danger common to this time of year.

We are not seeing a lot of forecasting yet for what to expect from this year’s monsoon season but what little we’ve seen is calling for a weak monsoon. If that turns out to be correct then it could extend the fire season much later than normal as was the case in 2019 when it ran into September.

Regardless of how long the fire season lasts it is up to all of us to be smart and safe and to also let new people that have come into our community about the fire danger we face every year. If you rent out your place for short term vacations (my wife and I rent out a cabin) then there is an extra responsibility of making sure renters understand the dangers, how fire restrictions work or better yet, don’t allow them to have fires of any kind.

The idea with this letter is not to scare anyone or go the other way and underestimate the threat either but to be realistic. We don’t have hurricanes or tornadoes; our thing is wildfire and we are lucky in that many wildfires are human caused and so behavior can potentially be modified to reduce the human factors contributing to our fire season.

Roger Nusbaum
Fire Chief
Walker Fire Protection Association