8 hours Ago By By Leah Rainwater News-Press NOW
After areas of Northwest Missouri and Northeast Kansas endured a summer of flood warnings, the cold and dry weather is raising alerts from the National Weather Service. On Wednesday, Oct 16, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning in terms of elevated fire weather for all of Northwest Missouri and Northeast Kansas on Thursday, Oct. 17 from 11 a.
m. to 7 p.m.
The warning states, "A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly. A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity, and warm temperature can contribute to extreme fire behavior." The Missouri assistant fire marshal said these warnings are something the Division of Safety has to stay on top of.
"It really elevates our level of communication," said Matt Luetkemeyer. "We have over 800 fire departments around the state of Missouri and we try to put the word out to those that maybe didn't hear directly from the National Weather Service." The NWS also advised that any fires developing during the time of the Red Flag Warning would likely spread rapidly.
This is due to increased winds. "Cooler weather doesn't mean that it's not still dangerous," said Luetkemeyer. "Low humidities, dry conditions, it's just a really bad time to do any outdoor burning or open burning, or do anything careless that might cause a fire.
Luetkemeyer also said during this time of the year, fire departments see more fires. "You'll see a fire season early on in February/March timeframe," said Luetkemeyer. "Then in the fall, we get towards the end of the year, get away from the rainy part of the year.
Things typically start to dry out, humidities drop as fall sets in and a lot of leaves and extra stuff on the ground creates a lot of fuel for fire." Luetkemeyer said it's not uncommon to see fires along the edges of roadways either. "A lot of fires start along the edges of roadways," said Luetkemeyer.
"That's typically because of improper disposal of smoking materials. People throw a cigarette butt or something out the window and keep driving ..
. and they have no idea that miles behind them, they've started a fire." Deer season also poses a threat to fires as well.
"There's a lot of UTVs and ATVs that are being used and we recommend that anybody using those vehicles off-road, to have proper spark arrestors installed in the exhaust systems," said Luetkemeyer. In addition to the Red Flag Warning, a new drought monitor map was released on Thursday morning, showing drought conditions are increasing in Northwest Missouri counties..
