Sep. 19--September's warm, sunny skies have brought back two words that Northlanders haven't seen in a while: fire danger.

The Minnesota Interagency Fire Center on Friday issued a reminder that many areas of the state are bone dry.

With the start of archery deer and small-game hunting seasons today, state wildfire officials are asking hunters to be extremely careful with ATVs, campfires, chainsaws and smoking. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will have full wildfire crews on duty in some areas this weekend.

Duluth has had only a single rainfall this month, about 1 inch, and now sits 1.5 inches below normal. After an unusually wet August, drought conditions that took hold in June and July now seem to be returning.

While Minnesota has seen its quietest wildfire summers in years, it only takes two or three weeks without much rain for conditions to become ripe for small fires to grow large quickly, especially on windy afternoons.

Parts of Koochiching, Itasca and Aitkin counties remain in dry or drought conditions, with a swathe of severe drought stretching from the northern Twin Cities suburbs north and east across Wisconsin. Almost all of Wisconsin is in some sort of drought category, according to the National Drought Monitor.

The National Weather Service in Duluth is forecasting little or no chance of rain until Sunday night or Monday, and even then it's only a 20 percent chance.

-----

To see more of the Duluth News Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/.

Copyright (c) 2009, Duluth News Tribune, Minn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.