The risk of wildfires in Michigan is extremely high right now, due to the unusually long stretch of sunny, dry days in the waning days of summer.
Jeff Vasher is a resource protection manager with the state Department of Natural Resources. He said lightning strikes can start wildfires, but so can people.
Leave a campfire "drowned" with water, until the firepit is a cold, wet slurry, he said, to ensure that no embers are left that could start a fire. And if people don't have to burn leaves right now, they shouldn't.
Sparks from leaf burning, or even the heat from the engine of a recently used lawnmower or off-road vehicle that's parked on dry grass, can start a fire.
Vasher said it's also harder to contain and eradicate wildfires when it's this dry.
"If we get a fire, for mop-up, to get the fire out, it's going to take a lot," he said. "It burns into the ground because it's so dry, and that's what takes a lot of mop-up. It just takes a lot of water to get the fire out. Last year we had a couple fires when the drought was this high that we mopped it up for over two weeks."
Vasher said people should always get a burn permit, but right now, many local governments may be restricting them due to the very dry conditions.
Vasher is hoping for a couple of days of steady rain — although it's not in the long-term forecast for now. He said a day or two of steady rain is much better at reducing the wildfire risk than the same amount of precipitation from a single big storm, since most of the water from heavy, damaging storms quickly flows into creeks and other waterways, rather than soaking into the ground.
