The Black Hills is experiencing dryness levels unlike anything it’s seen in a decade, officials say. Now fire and forest officials have one message – take the warnings seriously.
A small group of reporters are trekking out into the woods Friday near the community of Rockerville, about 10 minutes from Rapid City and a short hike away from the scene of the still-burning Silver Mountain Fire.
Reaching the destination destination, an outlook near the highway, the group stops and take stock of the area. To the left are two massive slash piles. To the right are low hanging tree branches. Under their feet are thousands of pine needles, pinecones, and twigs.
Chris Stover, conservationist and National Forest field specialist, explained just how fast this scene would burn with just a few sparks.
“This afternoon? Faster than we could run," Stover said. "How about that?”
Stover goes on to demonstrate the current fuel situation.
“Example – I haven’t touched these fuels at all," Stover says, grabbing and snapping a dry downed branch. "You see how that just popped over there? That’s an indicator. For fire potential, it’s visceral, right? When fuels are pokey, when it does that, you know it wants to burn. It hurts the hand to be able to pick it up and crunch it.”
He said this not a time to ignore fire warnings in the west.
“All of our indices right now are showing extreme fire danger in the Black Hills," Stover said. "If we get a start in the forest, fire is going to want to spread rapidly. It’ll propagate, and it will move quickly. It will be resistant to control.”
Stover said these conditions are here to stay until we get some rain.
“Snow oftentimes doesn’t bring a lot of moisture," Stover said. "Snow sublimates around here. It just doesn’t melt off, it will go from a solid to a gas. That moisture rarely transfers into our fuels here in the Black Hills. Rain is much, much better, and we’d rather see a slow, uniform rain then a high intensity rain.”
Until that rain comes though, Stover urges extreme caution for all outdoor recreation in the hills. That includes while shooting, being mindful of your car’s hot exhaust pipe, and when disposing of cigarettes.