WeatherWeather Science

Actions

Extended period of dry weather creating expansive fire threat beyond grasses

Grass fires are the classical spring threat in southern Colorado - they are one hour fuels. The National Interagency Fire Center's latest analysis shows that much larger fuels - including 100 hour fuels - are also critically dry now across southern Colorado. These include larger dormant shrubs, tall grasses, and deadwood.
Posted
and last updated

Monday and Tuesday are the seventh and eighth days this month with red flag warnings in southern Colorado. The extreme dryness this month has enhanced our fire threat beyond the typical grass fires we're used to at this time of year.

Remember the grass fire on Thursday near the Schriever Space Force Base? This is a typical springtime fire in southern Colorado. But we've been dry for so long, dry grasses aren't the only concern.

It has been a very dry start to March. In records dating back to 1895, the moisture month-to-date ranks in the top 20 driest stretches for the period.

From March 1st through 17th, Colorado Springs has picked up 0.04 inches of moisture and Pueblo has received 0.01 inches. For the month-to-date, that's the 11th driest for Pueblo and the 18th driest in Colorado Springs.

After a very wet January, February had average moisture - and the lack of moisture in March has recently taken the precipitation year-to-date for Colorado Springs below average after being above for much of the first part of the year.

That's not how we started the year. Remember all of our snowstorms in January? That translated to more than twice our normal precipitation in Colorado Springs. Then we picked up average moisture in February. But in the last couple of days, we've gone below average for the year to date.

Pueblo picked up 0.82" of liquid moisture in January - nearly 3 times the normal amount. But, February brought little moisture, and March has been very dry - even by the standards of the Arkansas River Valley.

In Pueblo, your January was even wetter, at nearly three times average. February was dry and this month has been bone dry.

Wildfires burn with many types of fuels. Fire agencies and forecasters classify these fuels based on how long they take to dry out. In our region, one-hour drying fuels are short and thin grasses. That was the main fuel source with the Meridian Fire and the fire on the west side of Colorado Springs. Ten-hour drying fuels are less than an inch in diameter and include shrubs and small branches.

And one-hundred-hour drying fuels are one to three inches in diameter and include medium-sized branches. These take about four days to dry out.

Grass fires are the classical spring threat in southern Colorado - they are one hour fuels. The National Interagency Fire Center's latest analysis shows that much larger fuels - including 100 hour fuels - are also critically dry now across southern Colorado. These include larger dormant shrubs, tall grasses, and deadwood.
Grass fires are the classical spring threat in southern Colorado - they are one hour fuels. The National Interagency Fire Center's latest analysis shows that much larger fuels - including 100 hour fuels - are also critically dry now across southern Colorado. These include larger dormant shrubs, tall grasses, and deadwood.

Grass fire danger here is high often because it only takes one dry downslope day to dry out the grass and give us high fire threats. But after multiple weeks with little precipitation and several downslope drying events, the National Interagency Fire Center estimates fuels like this are also extremely dry in parts of southern Colorado.

In these prolonged dry periods, fires also tend to spread faster and be more intense. Ten-hour and one-hundred-hour fuels often include buried dead plant material and can make it harder to get fires under control.

The main takeaway here is that while grass fires remain our biggest threat this time of year, in periods of extended dry weather we need to pay attention to larger foliage too.

____

Have a question or story idea you would like the First Alert 5 Weather team to consider? Email: weather@koaa.com

Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.