The ground is very dry, and not just by autumn standards.
Just over an inch of rain has fallen since Sept. 1 in Berks County, according to official rainfall records based on instruments at Reading Regional Airport.
That’s 5.89 inches below normal, and most of it came last month. October’s official rainfall total for Berks stood at a miniscule 0.02 inches as of Wednesday.
Rain seems like a distant memory. Lawns have turned brittle, and leaves that have fallen make a crunchy sound when stepped on.
The lack of rain combined with extremely low relative humidity, abundant sunshine and unseasonable warm temperatures —Tuesday’s high temperature was recorded at 86 degrees at the airport, a record for the date — have turned fields and forests into a tinderbox.
The National Weather Service early on Wednesday issued a special statement on the elevated risk of wildfires due to an expected drop in relative humidity across the region, winds near 10 mph to 15 mph with gusts up to 20 mph and abundant sunshine.
“These conditions will support the spread of any fires that ignite, which could quickly become difficult to control,” the statement read.
Outdoor burning is strongly discouraged, the weather service said while imploring proper disposal of potential ignition sources, including smoking materials such as cigarette butts.
Emergency management officials in some municipalities in Berks, Lehigh and Montgomery counties that don’t already prohibit outdoor burning by ordinance have imposed a temporary ban on outdoor burning.
Relative humidity values will be even lower Thursday, with stronger winds, according to the weather service.
Last week, a field fire in Oley Township was ignited by an arc from a power transmission tower.
“It’s so dry right now that even a hot exhaust if driving through a field can set off a fire,” said Cody Whitfield, assistant chief of Earl Township Fire Company in eastern Berks. “There’s a lot of harvest activity going on, but the thing we’re mainly concerned with is intentional fires. No one should be outside burning anything right now.”
Last week in Hereford Township, an addition to a home was destroyed by a blaze that was sparked by a fire in a burn barrel, according to fire officials.
On Monday, outdoor burning was believed to have ignited a fire that destroyed several storage pods and a box truck in Union Township.
Volunteer firefighters from Whitfield’s company assisted with that fire.
Then, late Tuesday, they were called to a forest fire on the Trout Run Reservoir property in Earl Township.
A passerby called 911 shortly before 10 p.m. after seeing several fires as he was driving down Powder Mill Hollow Road, Whitfield said. The woodland fires were easy to see on a dark night.
Crews from Berks and Montgomery counties needed about an hour to control the flames. The fire involved an area of up to 5 acres, but not all of the acreages was aflame, he said.
Whitfield immediately stuck a second alarm, with lack of easy access being the biggest hinderance. Crews used smaller brush trucks and ATV-style vehicles to access the fires in the woods about 900 yards off a trail.
Fortunately, they had an unlimited water supply, drawing water directly from the reservoir. The last crew left the reservoir area about 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources forestry crews assisted in making sure the fire was out.
The cause of the fires hasn’t been determined, Whitfield said.
