GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Northeast Wisconsin is looking a little more green, following a spate of wet weather in recent days.
It’s a welcome change from a bone-dry stretch that saw our spring brushfire season get off to a blazing-fast start.
“We are having about 3 times as many fires as we would in a normal year. So that’s an indicator right there. In addition, the size of our fires are a little larger. Normally we kind of hover in that 1 to 2 acre range, and we’re starting to see fires in that 4-plus acre range,” according to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Wildfire Prevention Specialist Catherine Koele.
She tells FOX 11 even though things are looking a little more green, we’re not out of the woods yet.
And that’s in a very literal sense in some spots they’re watching.
“That Langlade, Oconto County area– In 2019 we had widespread, 100,000-plus acres of downed timber and slash and brush, and that’s just a tinder box waiting to ignite.”
A big help would be to keep getting at least some rain on a regular basis.
Over the prior two months leading up to right now, much of our area had seen near-normal precipitation.
And over the last seven days, we have finally had a stretch of above-normal precipitation for much of the area.
But this only tells part of the story.
FOX 11 Meteorologist Phil DeCastro says this winter was a very dry one, with very little snow. So typically this time of year, the rain that falls, falls on snow, and that adds even more water to the soil and plants.
But without that snow pack, as soon as the rain is done falling, we start to dry out right away.
So until we see our vegetation significantly green up later this month, we will have to stay very vigilant about changing fire danger conditions– and they can change drastically from day to day this time of year.
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