Local fire chief cautions residents as dry winter lingers on
Travis Bateman
Farmer Staff Writer
While there is still plenty of time for winter to inundate the countryside with much needed snow or a wet spring, conditions right now are beginning to make area fire districts anxious as to what may come.
Already this month there have been large wildfires erupting in other states with similar conditions as those that exist here at home. Minimal to no snow cover and dead, dry grasses and brush are wreaking havoc in other midwestern states.
While the drought monitor currently lists almost all of North Dakota in the clear for any drought status, anyone around long enough knows that could change in a matter of weeks.
That’s why the chief of the Arnegard Rural Fire District, Rick Schreiber, is wanting to remind landowners and residents to prepare for what may come, and to do so now.
“Cautiously optimistic but not confident in terms of a wet spring of more precipitation this winter,” Schreiber said, when speaking about a conversation he had with National Weather Service officials recently in Bismarck.
Proactive action such as removing dead vegetation away from buildings, road ditches, and oil well sites. Mowing, if possible, is also recommended to reduce the length or height of our tall prairie grasses.
Spring is typically the worst for large scale fire threats in the fact that the region typically receives a lot of wind and coupled together with dry vegetation, it doesn’t take much for a fire to begin rapidly growing.
Add if there are soft or muddy ground conditions it becomes even more of a challenge for fire crews to engage and traverse around the perimeter and make a move towards containment.
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