Foresters ask public to heed burn bans as drought conditions, wildfire risk worsen

by

Lacey Alexander

• Published on August 22, 2023 • Comments

Pine trees tower over the Mississippi Forestry Commission building in Pearl. Dried pine needles and cones are one of many types of fuel foresters warn can exacerbate wildfires.
Lacry Alexander, MPB News

The southern half of the state is currently under a burn ban, and officials say conditions do not look to be improving anytime soon.

Lacey Alexander

Foresters ask public to heed burn bans as drought conditions, wildfire risk worsen

The temperature in Pearl has reached triple digits and the grass outside of the Mississippi Forestry Commission is browned and dry. State Forester Russell Bozeman is explaining the several factors that make wildfires in the area common around this time of year — from the temperature, to the wind, to the types of trees that grow in the state.

Forty counties are currently under a state-level burn ban due to dry conditions and extremely high heat. Sunflower County is also under a burn ban, but with several exemptions.

County burn bans as of August 22, 2023. Courtesy of Mississippi Forestry Commission

Bozeman says a dry season is expected around this time of year, but things are seemingly worse than usual.

“What we've seen this year is the rain shut off earlier in the southern half of the state particularly… We've been very fortunate that the northern half of the state a few weeks back was still continuing to get rain,” he said. “However, it's been a while since the northern half of the state has seen any real significant rain, and we are starting to see the drought creep north.”

Governor Tate Reeves signed a proclamation at the end of last week imposing a partial state-level burn ban on 40 counties in the southern part of the state. While most of these counties were already under locally-imposed bans, the governor's intervention activates the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

#MSforestry Commission Wildland Firefighters have suppressed 344 wildfires since August 1st, which burned 5,200 total acres. 349 residences and 45 businesses were threatened, but the fire team managed to save them all.#OnlyYou #PreventWildfiresMS #wildfireprevention pic.twitter.com/wn0AOGEjtW
— MS Forestry Commission (@MSForestryComm) August 21, 2023

Brett Ishee is the fire coordinator for Rankin County. He says they've seen a stark uptick of fires in the area, almost double, and he's concerned for his crews' safety amid historic heat conditions.

“What does scare me is the National Weather Service was talking about the state of Mississippi… reaching a record high [temperature],” he said. “What a lot of people don't take into consideration is you have first responders that are out there that have gear on in these conditions. The back-to-back fires that we're seeing and we're experiencing… that takes a toll on them.”

The governor's burn ban currently has no set expiration date and allows for no exceptions.