Fire Restrictions Continue in the Black Hills - KOTA Territory News

At a meeting Wednesday, representatives from the Black Hills National Forest, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, State of South Dakota Wildland Fire, and the counties of Meade, Butte, Lawrence, Fall River, Pennington, and Custer met decided to continue the fire restrictions in the Black Hills Forest Fire Protection District.

The fire danger is still in the Very High to Extreme category across the Black Hills and Prairie areas. Both forest and grassland areas are still extremely dry, making trees and grasses very volatile. Fire could spread rapidly if a wildfire starts.

"Until we get a good amount of moisture into those fuels out there we can expect to see these extremely dry fuel moistures to continue" said Jim Strain, Chief Fire Management Officer for the State of South Dakota. He continued, "Although some isolated areas of the hills have received moisture in the last week there are still many areas that are very susceptible to wildland fire."

Although the night time temperatures are cooler and the relative humidities are starting to climb in the night time hours, firefighters are still seeing higher then normal temperatures and dryer than normal conditions for this time of year.

"We are well aware of impacts that the current fire restrictions are having on folks," said Todd Pechota, Forest Fire Management Officer for the Black Hills National Forest.  "We are looking at every opportunity to find reason/justification for lifting restrictions as soon as possible."

The local, state, and federal agencies will continue to meet weekly as long as the current "Stage II Fire Restrictions" are in place.