PORT ANGELES — The danger of fire on the North Olympic Peninsula is so high that anything hotter than racy thought could start a blaze.
Leon Smith, Clallam County fire marshal, and Ken Dubuc, fire marshal for the city of Port Angeles, said burn bans remained in effect Thursday and will last at least through September.
Both men said some people had become confused by Seattle media reports that mentioned burn bans around Puget Sound but didn’t include Clallam County.
Similar bans are in effect in Jefferson County communities.
The fire marshals said the bans that began July 1 will continue at least until Oct. 1.
“No outdoor burning of any kind shall be permitted,” Smith told Peninsula Daily News.
The only exceptions are designated fire rings and grates in Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest.
Total burn ban
The restriction — thanks to a fire danger that climbed to “high” on July 21 — is “a total burn ban,” said Dubuc.
Showers forecast for Saturday won’t end it, he said.
“People get a little drizzle, and they think it’s safe,” said Dubuc.
“It’s not so. We need a major rainfall. We need substantial rain.”
Fuel moisture levels — measurements of just how dry are grass, brush and timber — are the lowest in three decades, Dubuc said.
“We’re well away from being over,” he said. “Every day that we have like today, the fuels dry out more.”
Cutting high, dry grass with a power mower could set it afire, Dubuc said. So could parking a car with a hot exhaust pipe, muffler or catalytic converter in dry grass.
Even a fire in an indoor fireplace or woodstove that has no spark arrester could start a blaze, he said.
Dubuc spoke angrily of a report of an illegal burn to which Port Angeles firefighters had just responded.
“It’s just incredible to me,” he said.
“People think it doesn’t apply to them, or they’ll be more careful than the other guy.
“This is an extraordinary summer, and it’s not going to get better until we get a significant amount of rain.”