How Massachusetts is preparing for future wildfires

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. Wildfires in L.A. are leveling neighborhoods, destroying thousands of homes and businesses in the process. Here in Massachusetts, we saw an especially busy fall of brush fires and red flag warnings.

GBH Meteorologist Dave Epstein sat down to speak with the state’s chief fire warden, Dave Celino, to discuss if we could see a similar situation as we’re seeing on the West Coast, and, if so, how we can be prepared for that possibility.

Dave Epstein: I guess first question would be, this fall, we did have an inordinate amount of brush fires here, almost unprecedented from what we typically see, especially at that time of the year. What were some of your thoughts on that and what did you learn?

Dave Celino: Well, there are some great takeaways from the fall. The first one is how we characterize it. And I’ll let you know a common — a common description that we’re using is really it was historical to really have 4000 acres. We burned just over 4000 acres in less than 60 days in the months of October and November. And actually when you think about the five-year average in the months of October and November, we average about anywhere from five to eight wildfires. And in November alone, we had over 440 wildfires across the state.

Epstein: When you were fighting the fires, or when folks were fighting the fires, were there unique aspects of that because it was in the fall and the leaves were down as opposed to typically we see more brush fires in the spring.

Celino: Yeah, it was, there’s really a list of the influences that drove the whole situation. And so it’s all about weather, fuel conditions, and topography. And so under weather, all of the factors in weather were firing on all cylinders, no pun intended. We had a short-term drought. You know, we dropped into precipitation deficit starting in the end of August and then building through September and then carrying right through October and November. By the time we hit November, some parts of the state we were over eight inches of rainfall deficit. We also had repeated periods of low relative humidity, low dew point, super dry air coming down out of Canada. And then we started to mix in wind events. We had nine red flag warnings across the state last year, and all of those happened in October and November. And then on top of all of that falling in alignment, we had our seasonal leaf drop, so we had fires like the Pappas fire, 35 acres in Canton, and my district fire warden out there, she just consistently described how that fire footprint, it actually burned three times. Why? Because the ground was hot, the fires were burning into the soil. It was a hot surface to the forest. And then we had continuous leaf drop every single day and so that stuff would burn on.

Epstein: For a homeowner that saw what went on in the fall and now maybe is anticipating this spring or this coming summer and fall, is there anything that a homeowner can do to mitigate their risk?

Celino: There’s a lot of partners in the fire service — state, local, federal fire agencies — and then there’s other partners as well that are just as important and that’s the public, and homeowners in particular. We’re always trying to message that, especially after this fall and seeing what happened out there, we have a lot of homes damaged. We had outbuildings destroyed out there, and now that we see that this can actually happen in our own backyards, there’s things you can do. And it’s about monitoring the vegetation around your home, making sure that flammable vegetation is not growing up within ten feet of that structure. Are your gutters cleaned out? Contact your fire departments and have them come out and help assess what your situation is. Our agency does that as well. Most homes in wildfires are lost not by direct flame impingement, but they’re lost by ember impingement. And that’s actually what you’re seeing in California. We’re seeing spot fires being thrown into these neighborhoods. They get into those mulch beds around the homes or they get into vent systems within the homes, and that’s what takes out structures for the most part across these situations. It can happen here in New England. It has happened in history, we’ve had large wildfires and, so you know, it can happen again. We’ve always been worried about history repeating itself.

Epstein: We’re still in a little bit of a drought here, especially in central Massachusetts and points a little bit west. Are you concerned at all for the spring? Obviously, we could get a lot of precipitation in February, March and into April. But let’s just say that we remain in this dry pattern. What are you thinking about for the spring months?

Celino: What we’re seeing right now is the same weather pattern that drove the fire situation in the fall. The only thing that’s missing is the warmer air. We’re seeing very cold air with this air mass. But we’re seeing really low dew points during the day and at night, and what happens is those fuels that are already dried out in the fall — got a little bit of rain around Thanksgiving and early December — but they will continue to dry. If we’re in these conditions and we go into March as the ground starts to thaw, it concerns me for the fire behavior we’ll see coming into the spring season.

Epstein: What are your thoughts about when you see what’s going on in California or you look what went on out in Maui a couple of years ago? What do you think? What’s your personal reflection on what you’re observing even this week?

Celino: Well, it’s not just me. We’re — all of us, the state fire supervisors, chief fire wardens from all over the states, and every state has somebody running their fire program — we’re in contact and communicating with each other all the time about these events. What we’re doing is we’re trying to capture lessons learned. One of the biggest lessons learned really, is that it can happen anywhere. I’m sure the folks in Los Angeles proper, inside the metro area, even though they’re no stranger to wildfires in Southern California, who would have ever imagined that we would have fire behavior down in center of town, right? And spot fires. Or the same in Maui. But even closer to home in in recent history was 2016, the Chimney Tops 2 Fire down in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Same fuel type that we have here, northern Hardwoods, in the Appalachian chain. That fire came off of that mountain with a vengeance into the center of town, resulting in almost 2000 structures lost and I think 13 fatalities. So that’s our takeaway as fire managers: don’t let your guard down. History does repeat itself. It can happen anywhere. We’re no stranger to it here in Massachusetts and some of the fire behavior that we saw this fall was an indicator that some of these fires were bumping up against residential areas. Middleton Pond, great example. Those folks worked tirelessly day after day after day to keep that fire contained in the perimeter and not impacting those homes that were just out of the northern perimeter of that fire.

Epstein: Well, Dave, thanks for being here this morning. We really appreciate all your knowledge and all that you and your team does to keep all of us safe here in Massachusetts.

Celino: Thanks Dave for having me.

Herz: GBH's Dave Epstein speaking with Massachusetts chief fire warden Dave Celino. You're listening to GBH 89.7.