October 2023

Welcome to
Wildfire Season
Lasting Longer and Raging Harder
For a little over a month, Louisiana
has been inundated with
wildfires. People are shocked,
as things like this only happen
in places like California,
right? Well, not anymore.
Since August 22, more than 60,000 acres
of Louisiana land has been scorched,
some by blazes of more than 300 feet
high. That’s 60,000 acres in just over a
six weeks in a state normally seeing a
much smaller fire loss of around 8,000
acres annually. Just one of this year’s
fires – Tiger Island – saw an acreage loss
of more than half that 60,000 amount.
Those numbers, as we leave our low level
rainy season and enter a high impact
dry season, aren’t good at all. On top of
that, many families have been displaced
due to the rapid strength of these wildfires.
When we hear about devastation
such as this during hurricane season,
we do what Louisiana does best – we
sit up, we take notice, and we ask how
we can help. For some reason, however,
that doesn’t seem to be on the radars of
a lot of people across the state when it
comes to wildfires. If someone doesn’t
burn garbage in their yard, they feel this
doesn’t affect them. But as we’re seeing
now - how very wrong people can be.
Louisiana has had wildfires in the past,
but not to the extent we’re seeing them
in 2023. There are numerous reasons for
this sudden onslaught, with weather
conditions and a lack of preparation being
top of the list. For example, embers
can travel in a dry wind, and when those
embers drop, they act as additional fire
starters with new epicenters. Greater
Baton Rouge area meteorologist and
trusted LMA friend Jay Grymes explains
in more detail.
“All you need is one spark or ember to
travel ten or twenty yards, and you’ve
got a new hotspot. That’s what’s making
the containment of these fires so difficult.
And the driving force this year is the
near record
drought.
When you
have this
incredibly
dry environment,
particularly
when
you’re the
wettest state
in the lower
48, it’s off
Jay Grymes
the charts
abnormal. Add to that a record warmer
than normal summer that’s the hottest
ever on the record books, and everything
in the environment is kindling just
waiting to pop.”
And the type of fire doesn’t matter when
lives are on the line.
“Although arson has happened, many of
the fires have also been caused by lightning,
for example Ascension and Livingston.
The wind driven factor is also key
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LMR | OCTOBER 2023