Twenty-two Arkansas counties are now under burn bans, and the Arkansas Forestry Commission has rated parts of the state as being at high risk for wildfires.
Residents of a 10-county area in the north-central part of the state and of the 21-county southwestern quarter of Arkansas are discouraged from burning debris, trash and limbs because of the dry conditions. The rest of the state is deemed as being at moderate risk for fire danger, and people are urged to burn only during early morning and late hours when winds are calmer.
County judges in Boone, Carroll, Cleburne, Conway, Faulkner, Fulton, Garland, Independence, Johnson, Lincoln, Perry, Pike, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Saline, Searcy, Sharp, Stone, Van Buren, White and Yell counties issued burn bans to prevent any open burning.
"It's pretty easy to get a fire going," said Darrell Zimmer, the county judge for Fulton County. "We're not normally as dry this late in the season."
Zimmer issued the warning Friday evening after the relative humidity dropped below 40 percent and winds gusted at 5 to 10 mph.
He said there have been no wildfires in his county since he issued the ban.
"People are heeding the warnings," Zimmer said.
Light rain fell Tuesday in Northwest Arkansas and in central Arkansas.
More rain is needed in Pike County, said Terrell Davis, the county extension agent.
"The last significant rain we had was on Aug. 13," he said. "We're starting to see dry pastures. Farmers are starting to feed cattle surplus hay they cut earlier.
"We're at the point we have to have rain, but there's no rain for the fall forage."
Adriane Barnes, a spokesman for the Arkansas Forestry Commission, said 18,525 acres have burned in the state this year because of wildfires. Last year, 19,045 acres burned.
The state undergoes two periods of increased fire danger -- just before spring and in the late summer and fall months.
"This is the first time since April we've had a high fire danger," she said. "It's a bit later than usual, but we had a super-wet August with the rains. The season normally ends in November, so this is happening just a little bit later than usual."
She urged people to heed burn warnings and danger notices.
"We can't talk enough about safety," she said.
Toby Davis, the county judge for Perry County, said he issued the county's burn ban as a precaution. Perry County, which is rife with timberland, has not seen many wildfires, Davis said.
"We had a couple, but we've been fortunate," he said. "I issued this before we got to the point. We need to make sure we deterred problems before they could happen.
"When we get more rain, I'll take the ban off."
Meteorologist Brian Smith of the National Weather Service in North Little Rock said a system that brought light rain into the state Tuesday should weaken and leave today. The next seven days should be dry, he said.
State Desk on 10/04/2017