Mass. had nearly 100 wildfires in Aug. as drought continues

Despite significant rain in much of Massachusetts on Monday and Tuesday, drought conditions are still leading to widespread wildfires.

On Monday, Georgetown became the latest in a string of towns to experience a wildfire, with the town’s fire department containing a wildfire in the Georgetown-Rowley State Forest, according to a news release.

Chief Forest Fire Warden Dave Celino said Tuesday that there are 12 active wildfires still blazing in the state, The Boston Globe reported. He said some are over 75 acres, such as in the case of Breakheart Reservation in Saugus and Lynn Woods Reservation in Lynn.

In August alone, Celino told the state’s drought task force, his department received reports about 97 wildfires, WBUR reported. This number is likely to tick up before the end of the month, he said.

The state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs announced on Aug. 9 that four of the seven drought regions in Massachusetts are in a “critical drought.”

This is just one level shy of the most severe of the five drought levels, called “emergency drought.”

According to the National Weather Service, between May 25 and Aug. 22, most of Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, and Essex counties received between a quarter and a half as much precipitation as they normally would based on a 30-year average.

Central and western Massachusetts faired a little better, seeing between 50% and 75% of the region’s average precipitation during that time, the NWS reported.

August exacerbated the drought, the weather service reported, with much of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Worcester Counties seeing between 10% and 25% of their average rainfall for the month. Most of the rest of the state saw between 25% and 50% of normal rainfall.

NWS meteorologist Bill Simpson said we will need to see a few months of normal or above normal precipitation before the drought is over.

“Hopefully we get into a pattern this fall where we get more steady rain. That’ll help bite into the drought,” he said.

In the meantime, the Globe reported, the Department of Conservation and Recreation announced Tuesday that until further notice, a temporary ban is in place on all open flame and charcoal fires across the Massachusetts State Park System to prevent wildfires.

The newspaper also reported that the wildfires that are still burning are expected to continue until there’s enough rain to squelch them.

State House News Service (SHNS) reported Tuesday that another impact of the drought has been low river flows, and that some rivers have even recorded record lows. It also reported that Department of Agriculture officials said the drought has caused farmers to have undersized crops.

Meanwhile, SHNS reported, many municipalities and water agencies are restricting outdoor water use, calling on households to limit or stop watering their lawns and new plants.

Of the 345 water management systems in the state, it reported, 168 now have water restrictions in place.

Some towns are even trying to punish those who break the restrictions. Cohasset, it reported, banned all non-essential outdoor water use on Monday and threatened fines between $50 and $100 for violations.

SHNS reported that officials are calling on people who rely on wells to exercise the same level of restraint in their outdoor water use.

“We just don’t want wells drying up or having other issues where they can’t access the water they need for their daily use,” Vandana Rao, director of water policy for the EEA, said.

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