By MARK MATTHEWS

Spring is in full swing, and with it come the signs of the fire season — the smell of smoke so prevalent it begins to seem normal; the ash smudged permanently into our Nomex shirts. Once again, it's time for groundpounders and smokejumpers to take the pack test, assemble gear for the red pack and plan for the upcoming fire season. Meanwhile, fire managers across the country have been at work for months trying to determine which resources they will have on hand this year, and where they will most be needed.

There's enough money to keep firefighting brigades funded at or near the same level as last year, says Rose Davis, spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. The 2006 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) budget includes $666 million for fire preparedness — about $10 million below last year's budget. The budget also allocates $690 million for suppression, with an additional $395 million earmarked for emergency and supplemental needs. Each forest and district decides which projects to fund and how many seasonal firefighters to hire with their share of the pie. For now, the funding looks sufficient. "I haven't heard reports about drastic cuts that say we're going to be short-handed for the upcoming fire season,'' says Bob Gilman, fire operations manager for the
Northern Rockies Coordination Center.

Whether the money is enough to meet all the challenges ultimately depends, as usual, on the weather over the next six months. In February and March, temperatures in the Pacific Ocean cooled, creating the condition known as La Niña. Meteorologists began to see the typical weather anomalies related with La Niña: Areas from Florida to the desert Southwest dried up, while the Pacific Northwest was drenched in rain. Following is a closer look at how this year's fire season is shaping up regionally.

AP PHOTO / JACQUELINE LARMA

PHOTO KIRK KEOGH Trees felled by hurricanes Rita (top) and Katrina (bottom), combined with debris from houses and buildings, present a significant fuels risk for wildfires in the Gulf Coast. Fallen trees also make it difficult for dozers to cut firelines.

Southern Area
Concern for Oklahoma and Texas will continue through spring, as officials are looking forward to the end, rather than the beginning, of the fire season.

By early February, one out of every 100 acres in Oklahoma had burned since November 2005. The area has seen no sign of rain since last September; in the southeastern part of the state, rainfall was 24 inches below normal, while the central part of the state lagged 12 inches below normal. Temperatures were also above normal; January proved to be the warmest on record. Under such conditions, computer modeling shows wind-driven flames are likely to eat up 3,000 acres of rangeland within 30 minutes. "The 100-hour fuels are as dry as kiln-dried lumber," says Mark Bays, fire information officer with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
 
The fire world of Oklahoma has been set topsy-turvy this year. Usually, fire managers prepare for a season that extends from February through April. This fire season not only started three months early, but may also extend a month or two beyond the norm. "We're forecasting more of the same," Bays says. "It's expected to be drier than normal through the spring and into May."

After firefighters battled a series of deadly wildfires in late December and early January, Texas Governor Rick Perry declared a statewide drought disaster, but that did little to stop another set of fires that burned more than 800,000 acres in March. The National Weather Service predicts continued drought in Texas through May and possibly beyond.

Firefighting resources from across the country — including air support, engines and crews — descended on Oklahoma and Texas in December and January to help volunteer rural fire departments hold the fort. However, many of those units will soon have to return home to take care of business in their own backyards. Meanwhile, officials are studying fire predictions from around the country, trying to decide which regions might be able to leave part of their forces on the southern plains. "We hope at least some of them will stay," Bays says. "I guess it's just our turn to burn."

Another area of concern in the South: the Gulf Coast region of Louisiana and Mississippi. "There's a lot of big timber down from Hurricane Katrina," says Cyril LeJeune, associate state forester in Louisiana. "We still have a rain deficit, and the fuels are curing and becoming more and more of a hazard." Fallen trees also make it difficult for dozers to cut firelines.

Gulf Coast firefighters received federal support all winter, but aid was scheduled to end by March, just before the traditional busiest part of the season. Although the state cut 10 percent of the fire budget because of a budget crisis, it has "been able to keep things in hand so far," LeJeune says. In January, Louisiana firefighters fought 534 fires that burned 10,569 acres.

Florida also experienced scant rainfall this winter, and the rain deficit should continue into the spring, says Kevin Scasny, predictive services meteorologist for the Southern Area Coordination Center. "[But] the tropical easterlies should shut down the season by June, the usual ending period,'' he says.

Eastern Area
Steve Marien, fire weather program manager for the Eastern Area, covers a lot of ground. His area includes the Great Lakes states, the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Big Rivers area (Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri). "[For most of the area,] we're seeing below-average snowfall, and we're anticipating an earlier start to the spring fire season," Marien says. Soil moisture and precipitation levels were "sitting pretty normal" last fall, but the area experienced higher-than-normal temperatures this winter. For example, Minnesota experienced its warmest winter since 1846.

In mid-February, Marien was chiefly concerned with the Big Rivers area. The fire season typically begins in Missouri in mid-February and works its way north to the Great Lakes by mid-April. This year, Marien expected fires to pick up in Missouri a month early "if we don't get some decent snow events across the northern part of the Eastern Area." By early February, the driest areas in the Big Rivers were southwestern Missouri and an area encompassing northern Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Even though the Northeast also experienced a mild winter, the potential for large fires is low, thanks to above-normal rainfalls. A big Northeaster helped out in mid-February by dumping two feet of snow from Maine to New York City. Fire risk for the Mid-Atlantic is also below normal, thanks to winter rain, plus a forecast for above-normal precipitation for some areas this spring.
  
Southwest Area
As far as the beginning of the fire season in the Southwest, Chuck Maxwell, the predictive services leader for New Mexico, Arizona and west Texas, reported in mid-February, "We're sitting here ready to go."
 
After plentiful rains in 2005 produced a bountiful grass crop last spring, the traditional summer monsoons failed to follow up, for the most part, with drenching showers in July and August. And little rain has fallen in the region since.

"The grass is still there, and now it's dead," Maxwell says.

Rocky Mountain Area
Heavy snowfall in the Colorado Mountains pleased skiers this winter, but the liquid wealth didn't make it to the farmers of eastern Colorado, southeast Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska. "[Those areas all] experienced a deficit [in] precipitation," says Russ Mann, Rocky Mountain Region fire weather meteorologist. By early February, Kansas already reported some fire activity.

 "It's rare to have fires [in this area] this time of the year," Mann says. "If it continues this way, we'll be looking at an earlier-than-normal fire season." High winds have also occasionally swept through the area, ready to drive grass fires should they start.
 
 In a typical year, snowstorms usually move through the Rocky Mountain area, but not only have the western plains seen no snow, the area has also experienced an unseasonably mild winter. Compounding the potential for high fire danger at elevations below 8,000 feet: high fuel loads. Last year's above-normal spring rains produced a heavy grass crop. Now those dead plants are waiting to burn. "We're seeing the classic dryness that accompanies La Niña," Mann says. "It's been so dry, things are ready to go."

In most of the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, the fire season should be a different story. Northwest and North Central Colorado received up to 135 percent of the normal snowfall. "We're looking at a late fire season in most of the mountains and in the higher elevations east of the Divide," Mann says. The only exception could be the mountains of southwest Colorado, which received only 50 percent of the normal snowfall. "They should see an early season," Mann says.

IMAGE COURTESY PREDICTIVE SERVICES GROUP/NATIONAL INTERAGENCY FIRE CENTER

Western Great Basin Area
The fire season should be fairly active on the rangelands of Nevada this year, says Richard Woolley, Western Great Basin predictive services manager. Although last summer didn't produce a bumper crop of cheat grass, what did sprout is still standing.

"We got less snow and more rain," Woolley says, "so the grass didn't get matted down. That makes it very susceptible to carrying fire. The increased fuel loadings lean toward a well above-normal fire season in the grass. The south is very dry, but we expect the wetter-than-usual pattern to continue through the winter in the north."

Consequently, the mountain woodlands of the Sierra front should escape large fires this year. "The mountains will probably be spared above 8,000 feet," Woolley says. The only exceptions may be pockets of forest in the foothills west of Reno and Carson City and in the Spring Mountains outside Las Vegas, all of which received low precipitation.

Eastern Great Basin Area
In the eastern Great Basin of Utah and southern Idaho, officials are preparing for an above-normal fire season in the lower reaches of the basin, which extends south of Richfield, Utah. The cause: a dry winter and holdover fuels from last year.

"It should be normal for the rest of the basin in Utah," says Ed Delgado, manager of predictive services for the Eastern Great Basin Area. "Even though it's dry, there's not a lot of fuel left over in that area."
 
In Idaho, the Snake River Plain may see an increase in larger fires, thanks to leftover grasses. "It all depends on what kind of spring we have," Delgado says. "If it is wet, it could increase the load of fine fuels."
 
The fire watch for mountains in the north and south has flip-flopped this year. Last year, the southern ranges got hammered with snowfall 400 percent above normal, which led to no fire activity. This year, the area received only 30 to 70 percent of its normal snowfall. The opposite is the case for the northern ranges, which saw less-than-normal snowfall last year, but 120 to 160 percent above-normal amounts this winter. Consequently, fire managers will be concentrating on the southern mountains this summer.

PHOTO KARI GREER During pre-season training, firefighters take the pack test in the early morning in Missoula, Mont.

Northwest Area
The farther north you go, the less likely fire managers are willing to predict the nature of the upcoming fire season.

"There is a shaky correlation with the La Niña pattern and the fire season," says Terry Marsha, meteorologist for the Pacific Northwest. "La Niña tends to correlate toward wetter-than-normal summers, but we don't put too much faith in that. Heavy rain leads to a good grass crop, which doesn't have a big effect on timber fires. The two major effects on the fire season are the lack of rain during the fire season itself, and lightning. Forecasting lightning is impossible. We usually wait until June before we get a good feel. The science is not there to give a definitive answer to what might happen during the fire season."

Predicting fire in the grasslands of the Columbia basin and southeastern Oregon is also no simple matter, Marsha says. Even when there is ample grass for fuel, lightning remains the key factor in sparsely settled southeastern Oregon. "If you don't get lightning in southeastern Oregon, you don't get fires," he says. Plus, winter rain or snowfall in the mountains bears no correlation to the upcoming fire season, except where the melt-off determines the season's start.

Northern Rockies Area
Although the mountains of the Northern Rockies area received adequate snowfall, the northern plains east of the Divide remained relatively dry, says Mike Kreyenhagen, predictive services meteorologist for the Northern Rockies Coordination Center. "We've got a weak La Niña forming and its impact is not completely clear," he said. "Generally with La Niña we see below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation. That has not been true this winter."

His prediction for the fire season: "[It remains] a coin toss right now. The severity of the fire season is pivotal on any rain in May and heat in June and July. Our long-term models show above-average temperature range and below-average precipitation. We have a better chance of being drier this summer, so it looks like a fairly active, normal fire season, which probably won't start until August."

Alaska
Sharon Alden admits trying to predict the fire season in the North Country takes a skill that no one has yet developed. Alden is the predictive services meteorologist for the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. "The nature of the fire season is based on weather in June, July and August," she says, "and that's more difficult to predict if there is no strong El Niño."

During the last few years, August in Alaska — the month that typically marked the end of the fire season — has been warmer than normal; 2004 was the warmest year on record. Fuels that remained dry for a longer period of time led to record-breaking fire seasons. In 2004, fire scorched 6.5 million acres — the most ever recorded in the state. Last year saw the third-largest amount of acreage burned, at 4.6 million acres. The yearly average is about 1 million acres burned.

The weather forecast in mid-February called for warmer-than-usual temperatures again this summer. After surviving the last two fire seasons, Alden concedes, "I'm putting a little more faith in the forecast this year. We expect a busier-than-normal fire season. We can expect more lightning in south central Alaska with the warmer temperatures."

As in the northern reaches of the Lower 48, snow pack has no effect on the fire season in Alaska, except in determining the start date. Fires usually begin popping up in April, but this year they "may start sooner at lower elevations—at the end of March," Alden says.

"The forecasts might be right, they might be wrong. It's just the way it is," she says.

Northern California
John Snook, manager of predictive services for the Northern California Geographic Area, has lived through a wet winter. In the thick forests near the Oregon border, down to Monterey Bay and Yosemite National Park, rain levels by February had already reached 100 to 230 percent above normal — and that was only two-thirds of the way through the rainy season.

"All in all, we'll have a pretty good water year [in the mountains]," Snook says. "We're probably not looking at anything worse than normal as far as fires go. The wild card is the amount of lightning we get near the end of July and into August. The bad seasons usually are marked by dry lightning bouts in August. We're sort of due for a bad lightning year. There hasn't been one since 1999. But that's following the law of averages, not a prediction. We usually get 70 percent of our lightning in August."
 
As for the brush and oak woodlands of the lower elevations, Snook expects the same as usual. "During any year, there's a good potential in September and October for wind-driven fires," he says. "We get mild downhill winds in the early and late parts of the season. They are almost critical at the end of the season every year. We call them ‘Northwest winds.' You're always going to get a little bit of wind and little rain at the end of the season."

Southern California
By mid-February, parts of Southern California had received only two inches of rain, compared with a normal rainfall of nine inches. In March, forecasters predicted another two to three inches. "We'll probably end up 50 percent of normal for the winter," says fire weather meteorologist Harold Coffer. Hot weather, about 80 degrees F in February, quickly dried out the heavy fuels between the rains.
 
High winds in the Santa Ana Mountains reignited embers from a controlled burn and spread fire across 10,000 acres in mid-February. "There is a lot of dried fuel on the ground," Coffer says. Unless a monsoonal flow develops this summer, the area should typically see no rainfall. "Without an excess of rainfall, we could potentially have an early fire season," Coffer says.

Mark Matthews, a former groundpounder on the Lolo National Forest, is the author of "Smoke Jumping on the Western Fireline: Conscientious Objectors during World War II,"  headed for bookstores this summer.