Conditions point to early fire season

Conditions point to early fire season

Us, i'm brian morton.

Yesterday newswatch 12's alicia rubin brought you live updates from the biggest grass fire so far this season.

Today she joins us live to tell us more about what we can expect this summer.

Brian fire season may be closer than any of us want to think about.

It's only april but we're seeing fire conditions that resemble may or even early june.

Today i spoke with firefighters that are asking the public to take this seriously, even though we technically still aren't in fire season.

The number one issue firefighters are seeing now are private burns that get out of control.

Austin says: there are quite a few people that burn each day that don't have a problem it's just those few that do end up having a problem that's where we have to get into action since there has not been any regulations put into place, rural residents are still allowed to burn debris -- and usually during this time of year that's encouraged to help create defensable space but this year the weather is just too dry and warm and is presenting too much of a fire hazard too early.

Brian says: the smart advice i think is to postpone burning projects until this fall even without regulations in place, if your burn pile gets out of control you could be paying for it.

Brian says: anybody who starts a fire on their property is under the law responsible for maintaining control of that fire brian with odf says every case is different and evaluated on a case by case basis but its likely you'll be footing the bill for firefighting costs if a fire you started requires firefighting resources.

Brian says: he's probably not going to get hit with a citation but he could well be vulnerable to repaying fire fighting costs brian says it's unusual to declare the start of fire season before june first but it's happened in the past and he says by looking at the projected forecast for the next three months, it's likely that we could see an early season this year.

Live from home, alicia rubin, newswatch