Weather-- hot and dry

It is going to be very hot and dry in California, the Great Basin, and western Colorado over the next couple of days. In California the temperatures have been approaching record highs. In the northern Sacramento valley today the highs will be 111-116 with the relative humidity at 7-12%. Red flag warnings are in effect for northern California, and sections of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho for high temperatures and very low humdities.

More fires than average?

At times it might seem like there have been an unusually high number of fires so far this year. The news is full of the fires in California, and smoke from the state has drifted east all the way to the Mississippi river. But other than Texas, Florida, and to an extent, North Carolina, Arizona and New Mexico, the rest of the country has been relatively quiet, fire wise. Much of the northwest, the Rockies, and northern Rockies had a wet winter and spring and are still green.

Nationally, to date there have been 46,367 fires which have burned 2,902,639 acres. The acres burned is actually below the 5-year average to date, which is 3,075,833. The 10-year average is 2,353,507. The number of fires to date is close to the 5- and 10-year averages.

Fire Summary (Five Day Trend) (courtesy of National Park Service)

Date	Wed	Thu	Mon	Tue	Wed
Day	7/2	7/3	7/7	7/8	7/9
Initial Attack Fires	282	335	223	274	161
New Large Fires	6	6	1	2	3
Large Fires Contained	5	5	3	3	1
Uncontained Large Fires	85	90	70	67	68

National Resource Commitments (Five Day Trend)

Date	Wed	Thu	Mon	Tue	Wed
Day	7/2	7/3	7/7	7/8	7/9
Area Command Teams	2	2	3	3	3
NIMO Teams	2	2	2	4	4
Type 1 Teams	15	15	14	14	15
Type 2 Teams	18	16	13	12	11
FUM Teams	0	1	1	1	1

Weather map, courtesy of Accuweather