Conditions around Central Oregon are already more like what wildland firefighters would expect to see in June rather than the start of May.

Warm, dry weather and little snowpack at low elevations have left the Central Oregon woods primed for wildfire, so fire season could start early this year, Alex Robertson, Central Oregon fire staff officer for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, said Thursday. Fire season in Central Oregon typically centers around July and August.

“We expect to be very busy this year,” Robertson said.

Since the start of the year, temperatures in Central Oregon have regularly been above normal, said John Saltenberger, fire weather program manager for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland. The center coordinates firefighting for state and federal agencies around Oregon and Washington. As for rain and snow, the precipitation simply has not fallen like normal.

A look at precipitation numbers collected at the Redmond Airport tells the story. Since Jan. 1, 1.53 inches of precipitation has fallen. Normal is nearly 3 inches.

“We are roughly at about half of where we should be for accumulation at the Redmond Airport,” Saltenberger said.

Snowpack figures are even worse. As of Thursday, the Deschutes-Crooked River Basin had 10 percent of the normal snowpack for this time of year, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The lack of snow at all but the highest peaks means lower-elevation forests — around 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level — could already be ready to burn, Robertson said. Just this Tuesday, a fire south of Sunriver burned through about an acre of timber. A transient’s escaped camp or warming fire likely caused the fire, said Kristin Dodd, Central Oregon assistant district forester for the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Due to the weather so far and similar weather in the long-range forecast, Saltenberger said Central Oregon has an above-average chance of seeing large, costly wildfires this fire season.

What defines a large, costly wildfire varies around the state because of differences in vegetation and terrain. Around Bend, a large fire is one that burns about 1,200 acres, said Isaiah Hirschfield, intelligence officer for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.

When fire season starts in Central Oregon all depends on when lightning storms occur and how careful people are with fire, Saltenberger and Robertson said. People and lightning are the two most common causes of wildfire in Central Oregon. Robertson said firefighters are especially wary of escaped campfires given how dry it is .

“The alarm for us is there are going to be more of these getting larger faster than in years past,” he said.

Sure, a switch to cooler, wetter weather this spring and summer could change Saltenberger’s prediction, but he does not see it happening.

“All the arrows are pointing in the direction of hot, dry conditions,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7812, ddarling@bendbulletin.com