PITTSBURGH — When most people think of wildfires, they envision the thousands of acres in the western United States burned to ashes each year.

But this summer and fall has been the driest on record for Western Pennsylvania since 2002, as the region suffers from low rain amounts and high temperatures, said National Weather Service Pittsburgh meteorologist Timothy Cermak.

Fire departments in the eastern part of the state have been battling wildfires spanning hundreds of acres, while Western Pa. has been spared from similarly large blazes.

Even so, high amounts of wildfires have occurred — and can still happen.

"We've got extremely low humidity and unseasonably warm temperatures," said Allegheny County Chief Fire Marshal Matthew Brown. "We also had this release of foliage with the cold nights, so you've got fresh fuel all over the ground and windy conditions. That's when we're really, really concerned."

This wildfire season, June 30 to Dec. 31, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Bureau of Forestry District 4 — which serves Allegheny, Greene, Fayette, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland counties — has responded to 75 wildfires, totaling 170 acres.

This is an increase of 31 fires from 2023 and the highest number of wildfires District 4 has responded to in the last 10 years, according to Bureau of Forestry District 4 records.

Pittsburgh's Bureau of Fire has responded to 161 brush fires so far in 2024, which is 15 more fires than in the entirety of 2021, according to records from Allegheny County Emergency Services.

What has spurred the increase? The drought, said Cory Wentzel, forest assistant manager for District 4.

The Department of Environmental Protection's Drought Task Force put more than 30 Pennsylvania counties under a drought watch earlier this month, with two under a drought warning, due to a lack of rain in September and October.

Experiencing "flash droughts," Western Pennsylvania has seen brief periods of severely low rain amounts, humidity, and record high temperatures, Cermak said.

According to the United States Drought Monitor, 57.5% of Pennsylvania is experiencing drought conditions as of Nov. 22 and most of southwestern Pennsylvania is under a drought watch.

Which means our region is still at risk for wildfires. "From here on out I still think we need to have our guard up," Wentzel said. "Even though it is raining, still be cautious."

With conditions favorable for a wildfire, local and state agencies have been especially on guard. In Allegheny and surrounding counties, fire departments have multi-level procedures in place for the prevention and response to forest fires.

'It can be really treacherous'

Wildfires are "drastically different" from everyday structure fires, Chief Brown said.

Some fire departments, out of the 170 in Allegheny County, are equipped and trained for wild land firefighting, he said. Gear has to be much lighter and many departments can not afford the equipment for this type of response. "A lot of the equipment, gear, the associated terminology even, is completely different," Chief Brown said.

Training is offered to local departments through the DCNR, including how to combat wildfires, using equipment, learning how wildfires behave and other tactics. These courses are voluntary so not every department has the knowledge to combat a wildfire alone.

However, 90% of wildfires in the region are handled by local departments without the DCNR's intervention, Wentzel said.

The Coraopolis Volunteer Fire Department battled a 7-acre brush fire on Maple, School and Fleming streets that spread uphill into parts of a nearby cemetery earlier this month.

Chief Larry Byrge said it took nearly 11 hours to put out the fire, along with the help of 10 other local departments that brought additional staffing and wildfire equipment.

"We called for a couple tankers because up in the cemetery there's no hydrants," he said. "We had to drag hoses through the woods and up hillsides. Some of the departments had brush equipment, like a four-wheel drive, so they could get into the woods."

In his 37 years with the department, Chief Byrge has only seen two other brush fires to that extent, he said. He believes the drought, and the day's high winds, played a "big role" in how the fire spread.

The volunteer fire department bought new equipment to tackle wildfires moving forward, including chainsaws to take down burning trees and hoses that can easily be maneuvered through forests, in light of the incident, he said.

"When you're dealing with a fire as a volunteer department, it's kind of tough," he said. "That's why we depend a lot on mutual aid when we have something big like that going on."

Allegheny County Emergency Services keeps up with the National Weather Service and the DCNR to see how weather conditions may contribute to possible outdoor fires, Chief Brown said.

A brush fire response begins with the 911 center getting the right information to departments. From there, the county will see which departments have the right equipment to handle a wild land response. Departments will then tell dispatchers what they need in terms of equipment and manpower once they are at the scene.

Larger fires might call for a "tanker task force" which is made up of different departments that have water tankers in Allegheny and surrounding counties, Chief Brown said.

The biggest need is usually more people to help combat the fire.

"More than anything it's just a manpower issue at that point versus specialized equipment," he said. "Because it can be, with those high heat conditions, really treacherous with hillsides and ravines. It can wear on the firefighter very fast, so we've got to swap out staff a lot faster than we normally would.

"Then emergency management, not only at the municipal level but certainly at the county level, helps to coordinate those larger incidents."

That's when the DCNR comes in. District 4 of the Bureau of Forestry's staff — who receive in-depth training in wild land fire fighting and have additional equipment — will, on occasion, assist with fires that spread beyond five acres, Wentzel said.

Equipment can include bulldozers that dig lines to stop the spread of on-ground fires or if the fire is extremely large, the bureau can call in helicopters and planes to dump water over the area.

Fire wardens and local departments that work with the DCNR are the "backbone" of the region's wildfire response overall, Wentzel said.

'The key is to prevent them'

The best way to prevent a fire is to not have it start, Wentzel said.

Advocacy and awareness is the line of defense, including Smokey Bear and social media campaigns. Awareness can also be seen through education, going into schools and talking about what can cause wildfires, Chief Brown said.

Education is particularly important in Pennsylvania, as 99% of brush fires are caused by people burning items such as trash or dead leaves. Across the U.S., 87% of all wildfires are caused by human-related activity, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

Counties across the state have had to take more proactive measures during the drought to make sure burning is happening at a minimum.

More than 20 counties have enacted burn bans, including some in Western Pennsylvania, as of Nov. 22, according to the DCNR. While counties can implement burn bans through state law, there are also a number of local regulations that can stop open burning as well.

"Allegheny County does have rules related to open burning; they're more associated with our Allegheny County Health Department specific to air quality," Chief Brown said. "But there are fire safety elements within that air quality ordinance that we share with our health department to help implement."

Wentzel said that burn bans being enforced shows how serious the drought conditions are in regards to wildfires, since he has not seen counties do so in his 27 years working with the Bureau of Forestry. He suspects the bans will stay put until the region gets more rain or snow.

Winter weather has begun in Western Pa., the region, but that does not mean the drought will be resolved, said NWS Pittsburgh's Cermak. While the bouts of rain and snow have helped, the region will probably not be in the clear until the spring.

Cermak said the NWS Pittsburgh expects a wetter winter than normal, as a weak La Niña is predicted to move into the region. Still, the region would need steady rains on a weekly basis to fully resolve the drought.

"The latest seasonal outlook from the Climate Prediction Center does have the drought improving over the coming months, during the time period from roughly November to February," Cermak said. "The patterns support some drought improvement, not drought removal necessarily."

So it is hard to say whether this winter's conditions will help against the wildfires popping up around the region.

The most important thing to have people understand, Chief Brown said, is the cost of burning while our region is under these severely dry conditions.

"A simple burning ember getting carried into a wooded area can spread rapidly in the extremely dry conditions that we're in and it can cost people's lives," he said. "Not only the [lives of the] public that we are serving to protect, but the firefighters and first responders that are out there.

"These can be very challenging and threatening fires. The key is to prevent them."

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