Weather conditions ripe for another Great Seattle Fire
Jul 8, 2015, 3:22 PM | Updated: Jun 5, 2023, 12:49 pm
Photo is looking south down Front Street, now 1st Avenue, from Spring Street toward Madison on June 6, 1889. (Photo from Fleets and Facilities Department "Imagebank" Collection Record Series 0207-01)
(Photo from Fleets and Facilities Department "Imagebank" Collection Record Series 0207-01)
Weather conditions this summer are dangerously similar to those of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.
Sea breeze winds coming off Elliott Bay that warm afternoon of ’89 helped fan the flames and spread the fire from one building to the next with ease. The fire burned 25 blocks of downtown.
Can a fire like that happen today?
The current, unseasonably warm and dry conditions have created a situation where fire can spread from one building to another easily, particularly in neighborhoods where homes are quite close to each other. Fortunately, some structures now have more fire resistant building materials and a state-of-the-art fire response community can help stop such spreading fires. Yet it can still happen thanks to the weather conditions.
Brush fires in Bellevue, Orondo see start of Washington wildfires
Similar warm, dry conditions with strong gusty winds were in place in Detroit in early September 2010. More than six dozen homes burned as winds spread the flames from home to home.
Another huge urban wildfire occurred October 1991 in Oakland Hills, California. A wind-whipped fire swept through more than 3,000 residences, killing 25 people and injuring 150.
The antecedent weather conditions in all these cases were ongoing warm, dry weather and a day with blustery winds. Then, some kind of fire ignition occurred. In these three cases offered, the fires were all human caused.
Western Washington is quite dry. Fuel moisture in trees and other large fuel sources are drier now than they are typically at the wildfire season peak in late August.
Western Washington has been unseasonably warm. June in Seattle was the warmest ever with an average temperature of 68.0 degrees, crushing the former record of 65.8 degrees in 1992.
By July 8, Seattle has had six days of 90 degree or high temperatures, including a string of five days in a row — tying the previous record in early August 1981. The rest of the summer lies ahead and the latest summer weather outlook is for more warm, dry conditions.
Everyone needs to do what they can to help avoid any fire starts during this quite warm dry period, particularly on breezy days where the wind can help spread any fire in both a rural and urban setting.
Visit www.firewise.org for tips on how to avoid accidental fires.
