The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their National Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for August through November, 2012. If it is correct, some firefighters in portions of the west and in the center of the country could be busy over the next few months.
From the NIFC report:
- “For August above normal significant fire potential is expected across most of the interior mountains and foothills of Southern California; the Sierras; much of Nevada; southeastern Oregon; much of southern Idaho; northwestern Utah; northeastern New Mexico; northwestern Colorado; much of Wyoming, southern Montana and a small area of the western Dakotas. Conditions will improve to normal after August in New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Additionally, above normal significant fire potential will develop across portions of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, as well as western portions of many of the Hawaiian Islands.
- Significant fire potential will be below normal in the western and northern portions of the Pacific Northwest, as well as along the Gulf Coast and Alaska.
- The rest of the country will have normal significant fire potential.”
