Key ingredients that make fires spread

A region’s peak wildfire season varies throughout the year and there are places that fire season goes year-round, with peaks a few times a year.

Wildfires do not wait for a season to get going, they just need the right conditions to quickly spread and become uncontrollable. And as you may imagine, the weather has a lot to do with it. Today, extreme and critical wildfire risks have been posted in the central and southern High Plains as well as the central and southern Rockies.

Additionally, parts of the Northeast, including eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, should keep an eye out for wildfires today thanks to a breezy and dry air mass.

There are 3 components that help fires propagate and they are available for today's event: drought or dry vegetation, low relative humidity, and winds. If there is ignition, such as a spark, the fire starts. The three weather ingredients often make the fire grow and become erratic.

Fire ignition can be caused by cigarette butts, a still-burning match, smoldering, a small (controlled) fire pit, a hot tailpipe, or even lightning. Knowing the causes of ignitions can help us easily understand the fact that 9 out of 10 wildfires in the United States are caused by humans.

Dry thunderstorms bring lightning but the rain evaporates before reaching the ground or it is so light that if lightning hits, especially over very dry vegetation, fires get started easily. The latest drought update shows an over-abundance of dry vegetation over the wildfire risk areas present today and over the next several days.

Check the weather conditions for your location on our interactive WeatherRadar

The reasons for fires to spread are weather-related. Dry seasonal conditions can lead to drought. Climate change is causing some areas, such as areas in California through the Four Corner region, to live in a perpetual drought.

During the fall, winter and spring, the United States is dominated by fronts that can usher much drier air from higher latitudes, especially across the Central Plains and East. But for some places, the summers are also high fire risk months as warm temperatures also help fires grow and it is usually toward the end of dry seasons, which is when a drought could be at it is worse level.

The wind, well… that’s oxygen. The higher the wind, the more oxygen available to help spread the fire and allow it to grow. This is what makes a fire behave erratically and brings major problems to firefighters trying to put out fires.

Track the wind on our WindRadar here.

Now that you know how the recipe works, make sure to check the weather conditions where you live. If the air is dry, winds are strong, and vegetation is dry, there will likely be a red flag warning or high fire danger in place.

This is the time to avoid activities involving fires. Something as simple as throwing your still ignited cigarette out the car's window or leaving your car parked on dry vegetation could ignite a fire and can grow to leave millions of dollars in damage and even deaths.