The National Weather Service in Wichita has issued a Red Flag Warning from 10 A.M. Friday morning through 8 P.M. Friday evening for extreme grassland fire danger for central South Central and Southeastern Kansas.
A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now or will shortly. A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures can contribute to extreme fire behavior.
Kansas State Forest Service Meteorologist chip Redmond talked about the fire conditions in a video released on Wednesday. “So, we can basically continue fire activity over all vegetation. Corn stubble behind me is usually a place where we're to be pretty successful at catching the fire with the prolonged drying conditions.”
“Despite there still be mud in some of these fields, it's going to be really, really challenging to get fires put out because they're so dry they're going to hold heat for a long period of time.” Redmond added.
for the future, Richmond said it the conditions look to get worse with no sign of precipitation in sight. “That gets worse as we go into the next week, to two weeks, and maybe even longer, with no real precipitation in the forecast for the state, and multiple episodes of fire weather as you end the month. It's a very active pattern.”
He talked about the immediate concern today and Friday, Thursday. “We're going to have gusty southerly winds with teens for humidities in the western third of the state. That's going to expand eastward as we go into Friday, into south central and eastern Kansas, we could get winds up to 65 miles an hour, single digit humidity. It definitely it's a pattern that's very reminiscent of previous large, significant fires in the Kansas landscape.” said Redmond.
After Saturday, things look to settle down on Sunday, but another threat looms early next week. “Set the table for the next fire weather event on Monday into Tuesday of next week with another potential strong low-pressure system and potential fire outbreak condition.” Redmond added.
If you have done any burns the last week or two, go and check them to make sure that they are out. Reno County Fire Districts three, four and eight on Monday evening responded to a shed and tree line fire on Monday night that rekindled from a previous burn in a burn barrel.