With underway, there are lots of reasons for you to be checking the each day. Before you lace up your , you’ll want to know if you need to be worried about in case you need to be off the summit before noon. If there’s an in effect, you might want to raincheck that camping trip until conditions are more favorable.
But what should you do during a Red Flag Warning? These alerts pop up on the weather forecast with some frequency during the warmer months, and especially in the mountain areas where we love to hike and camp. But what does it actually signal? In this article, we take a look at what this term means, and how you can stay safe when the conditions raise a red flag. A Red Flag Warning is issued by the to alert fire managers on federal lands when high temperatures combine with low humidity and high winds.
Together, these conditions increase the likelihood of dry kindling on forest floors. This cocktail of meteorological factors signals an extremely high risk of wildfires, which according to the burned over 117,000 acres of land in the US in 2023. Red Flag Warnings are primarily to alert fire managers not to carry out any prescribed burns and to be on the lookout for wildfires, however everyone can help to reduce the risk of wildfires with the following actions: Any indication that fire danger is high should definitely get you thinking, especially if you’re planning an overnight trip where you might want to and .
On its own, a Red Flag Warning is for fire managers, bu.
