Active Wildfire Season Expected For West

What’s the expected outlook for fire season across the west this summer

"We’re expecting an above normal fire season Integral factors that are beginning to line up with each other that we tend to see during the busier type seasons," said National Interagency  Fire Center meteorologist Bryan Henry.

He noted those factors include: below normal soil moisture going to the summer, expanding drought in parts of the west, increased fuel growth, quickly melting mountain snow pack and by July and August increased probability of warmer and drier than average conditions.

Among areas of concern Memorial Weekend through June:

"Right there along the Mexican border and in Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas."

In To July:

"The western half of the great basin due to the heavy grass crop they got there and the intensified drought that’s still there."

And then at the fire season’s peak here in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.

"Once you go in to our peak in August those will probably be our focal points until we can get some kind of a wetting rain event or series of wetting rain events coming through and after Labor Day," Henry noted.

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