Northeastern State Fire Services Bracing For The Worst After Multiple Fires In Fall 2024

[hatrack]

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As months of record-low rainfall in most of the Northeast dried vegetation to a crisp, pockets of wildfire sparked in October and November: more than 200 acres of brush burned in the Lynn Woods, north of Boston, and on New Jersey’s border with New York, fire scorched 5,000 acres of land and took the life of one volunteer firefighter. To the east, a meadow burned in the middle of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. In Connecticut, a longtime firefighter died when he was struck by a utility vehicle as he battled a large brush fire.

The drought conditions were a surprise given the region’s long-term trend of higher rainfall, said Michael Rawlins, a climate scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and associate director of its Climate System Research Center. “What we experienced in fall 2024 was very, very anomalous,” he said. Climate models outline that as global temperature averages rise, there will be increased rainfall for the Northeast this decade and beyond. The region has already seen a 60 percent increase in days with extreme rainfall since 1958, according to data from the US Forest Service and NOAA.

This year, NOAA’s seasonal drought outlook forecasts improving drought conditions by the end of April. But its precipitation tracker projections are less clear, falling somewhere between above-average wet and dry conditions, and offering little certainty or comfort to regional fire managers.

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This was precisely the case in the fall of 2024. Massachusetts saw less than three-quarters of an inch of rain in September and warmer-than-average temperatures. “It was beautiful,” Celino said about the autumn months. “Any given weekend if you went to a state park it was packed with people. But the whole time all of those factors are continuously drying out the field and continually setting the stage.” Leaf litter and organic material in soil dries out in drought conditions, and fire can burn through it and as deep as two feet into the ground. Celino said that drove the fire across Massachusetts, part of what he called a “historic event” that demanded a robust response not seen since 1947. Massachusetts experienced 663 fires in October and November when the monthly average usually falls between 15 and 20. By the end of the year, 4,600 acres had burned across the state, with 4,000 acres charred in less than 60 days. “That’s way off the charts,” Celino said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18022025/northeast-wildfire-risks/

[dutch777]

1. Don't know about the rest of the NE but our little section of eastern PA is behind like 10 inches over last 12 months

Snows have been light and rain infrequent. Not a good start to spring. I am thinking of building rainwater harvesting tanks that I can add solar powered cold condensers and drip irrigation to so I can avoid using precious and expensive tapwater for my vegetable gardens.