Sean C. Morgan
Bringing a bit of moisture with them, last week’s thunderstorms weren’t as big a positive as if they had come just a month or two later, but they have helped vegetation grow.
Fire officials say fire season and the annual burn ban will most likely start on June 15 as the weather and forest fuels start drying up, but in an already dry year they’ve welcomed the rain, and say the lightning didn’t cause any problems in the Sweet Home area.
“I’ve been loving the last couple of weeks, really,” said Craig Pettinger, unit forester with the Oregon Department of Forestry Sweet Home Unit. “The official forecasts are all gloom and doom.”
He hopes it will rain like that every couple of weeks this summer and take the edge off a season that is expected to be hotter and drier than normal.
The last few nights, Sweet Home was under a “split flow,” causing localized “pounding with rain,” Pettinger said Thursday. Afternoon heat triggered lightning.
None of it amounted to anything, but it’s possible a fire could’ve popped up somewhere in the valley, he said. If there were any sun during the event, something probably would have popped up locally.
Pettinger said he was surprised the wet weather lasted two weeks. That has helped vegetation growth, which becomes fuel as it cures in the summer heat.
Recorded rainfall at the Sweet Home Unit has been low all year, 3.93 inches in April and 14.46 to date as of the end of April. With the May rain, the total is between 15 and 16 inches so far.
The 25-year average through April is 22.71 inches of precipitation.
The weather “has been good for us,” Pettinger said, as fire officials head into the camping season.
“This three-day weekend is the kickoff to the season,” he said, and fire officials usually see some kind of fire-related activity.
They always have someone available to respond to fires, but they were on high alert heading into Memorial Day weekend, he said.
The Sweet Home Unit already has one member of its summer crew on and working, Pettinger said. It’ll bring on a few more on soon, but most of the crew will begin after school lets out. Teachers and students looking for summer work round out the crew.
The Sweet Home Unit also has saved some cash to hire two additional firefighters this year, he said. “By June 15, it will look like this place just swelled.”
The week after that, June 22-26, the annual fire school begins in Sweet Home, with firefighters from numerous agencies showing up to earn their certification.