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Fire season off to busy start in Southwest Virginia

Published March 15th, 2010 | 0 Comments

ABINGDON — Spring fire season is less than two weeks old, but Virginia Department of Forestry crews and volunteer fire departments have already been forced to battle a number of blazes in the far southwest corner of the state.

Since March 6, crews have fought nine blazes covering 125 acres in the counties covered by the forestry department’s Abingdon office, with five of those fires occurring in Scott and Lee counties.

The largest of the fires happened March 9 near Lee County’s Blackwater community and claimed 65 acres, including nearly 40 acres of open field covered with buffalograss.

That fire is being investigated as an arson, as is a three-acre blaze that occurred off Route 604 on March 6. The two incidents are not believed to be related.

In Scott County, a March 6 blaze covering two acres near Mabe-Stanleytown Road was caused by falling power lines, VDF Assistant Regional Forester Bill Miller said.

Two other fires that occurred during the following days in the county — a four-acre blaze on Possum Creek Road in Yuma and a two-acre fire near Copper Creek — resulted from burning trash.

Miller said the number of incidents comes as no surprise since spring is the most active time of year for forest fires.

“Spring, of course, is when most of our fires occur because things have cured out over the winter, the leaves are off the trees, the days get longer and more windy, so things dry out quicker,” Miller said.

Because of the dry conditions, burning is banned before 4 p.m. during the fire season.

“In Virginia you can’t burn until after 4 p.m. and there are no exemptions to that,” Miller said. “Before 4 p.m., humidity is much lower and temperatures are usually hotter, and the wind can cause it to spread faster.”

Violating the 4 p.m. ban is a Class 3 misdemeanor and could result in a fine up to $500.

That ban ends with the fire season on April 30, Miller said.

“On May 1 people can burn anytime they want,” he said. “They just have to stay with it until it is put out. If it does escape they’re also responsible for suppression costs in Virginia, and those can be expensive.”

Miller said many of the blazes that occur in the spring can be avoided by simply waiting until the end of the spring fire season before attempting to burn trash and other items.

“If people could wait until the leaves come out and things green up, because it provides shade and holds moisture once it falls,” Miller said. “Right now there is nothing to hold moisture from all of these events we’ve had. It can rain and we can have fires the next day if it’s warm, windy and sunny.”

Even though rules may be relaxed once the fire season ends, Miller said it’s still a good idea to check in with local authorities before attempting to burn anything on a large scale.

“If they’re going to burn something big, especially like a brush pile, they need to contact their local sheriff’s office and let them know,” Miller said. “A lot of fires get called in as false alarms, and we don’t want a fire department to get called out just because someone is burning brush.

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