{"id":8814,"date":"2012-05-27T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T06:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=8814"},"modified":"2012-05-27T14:29:11","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T19:29:11","slug":"despite-the-rain-fire-prone-areas-not-out-of-woods-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2012\/05\/despite-the-rain-fire-prone-areas-not-out-of-woods-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain Doesn’t Dampen
Fire-Prone Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Lighting Strike Fire - File Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

May has been wetter than normal, which has been a blessing in an area where wildfires can spring up, literally like a bolt of lightning.<\/p>\n

But as hurricane season approaches that doesn’t mean the risk of fires has gone. In fact, according to an expert, the danger of fires is a year-round reality.<\/p>\n

Victor Hill, a wildlife mitigation specialist with the Caloosahatchee Forestry Center, said the early May rains helped initially.<\/p>\n

“The rain came sooner, which was helpful. Even more, there weren’t as many lightning-caused fires,” Hill said. “We’ve had a few fires, but not to the degree of what we had last spring at Golden Gate Estates.”<\/p>\n

That fire, caused by a lightning strike, burned more than 2,800 acres.<\/p>\n

Because of the rain, the Forestry Service has been able to do more prescribed burns than in the past few years, including one on Pine Island last week, Hill said.<\/p>\n

Yet, even with the rain, much of the Caloosahatchee region is still dry, especially west of I-75, which has seen lower-than-normal rainfall for two years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mopping Up A Lighting Strike Fire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, once the rainy season begins that doesn’t mean the risk of fire ends. All it takes is one bolt of lightning, which causes about a quarter of all fires.<\/p>\n

“Once the rain settles in, we still have fires. It’s a year-round thing,” Hill said. “There’s more lightning in the summer, and if you live in an area with more vegetation, you can’t get complacent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May has been wetter than normal, which has been a blessing in an area where wildfires can spring up, literally like a bolt of lightning. But as hurricane season approaches… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}