00:01A dry, breezy weekend amid a drought-stricken February led to dozens of wildfires in Florida over the weekend.
00:08Osceola County Fire and Rescue said one brush fire spread to a plant nursery, which produced this massive plume of
00:13black smoke in central Florida over the weekend.
00:17Well, wildfire danger is building, and it's not just because it's dry.
00:22About 40% of the country remains in drought, and above-average heat this spring is accelerating fuel drying across
00:30the four corners, the central and southern plains, and Florida.
00:34Add wind to that equation, conditions can quickly escalate, so let's take a closer look at where the risk, here's
00:40the drought map, where the risk is highest as we step into the coming months.
00:45Again, we've got big concerns for drought into the southern plains.
00:48It's been very dry in the interior west, and Florida's still facing a drought.
00:51Parts of the mid-Atlantic, I know we've seen a lot of cold and snow, but it's actually been pretty
00:55dry by the numbers in parts of the interior mid-Atlantic,
00:58like western parts of the Commonwealth of Virginia into the interior Carolinas.
01:02So here is the fire risk forecast from our long-range wildfire team here at AccuWeather.
01:09We're highlighting the greatest concern for the eastern part of the Four Corners region into the western half of the
01:15southern plains.
01:16We've got the dryness.
01:17We're also anticipating continued dryness in this area.
01:22Climatologically, wildfire season often takes off first in places like New Mexico and West Texas.
01:27We're going to see these dry wind events in these areas.
01:29Into Florida, we're entering some typically dry months, very dry, so that's not good news there.
01:35Other parts of the Gulf Coast states, the interior mid-Atlantic, we've had a lot of dead timber from ice
01:40storms,
01:41even going back to Helene there in western North Carolina.
01:43That's plenty of fuel for fires, too.
01:44So the Four Corners and western parts of the plains, wind and ongoing drought, increase the fire risk.
01:50Florida, we're dry.
01:51We're entering a dry stretch of the calendar.
01:53Parts of the Mid-Atlantic, despite recent cold and snow, some areas are still running dry.
01:57Now, the northwest and parts of California generally look okay for the short term.
02:01See youục home.
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