Keith, That's a great article. My introduction to fire behavior came during the drought of 2005-2006 when we had only a little under 19" of rain in 2005 and our "winter fire season", which normally is mostly a spring season, began in October. We were in extreme to exceptional drought. How dry was it? Tree roots burned underground. Some wind-driven fires required 20 to 30 fire departments (our county has 13 VFDs at the time) including firefighters from Texas. It was horrendous. It continued into 2006. I cannot even explain the impact except to say that our tiny, 3 to 4 year-old VFD went from about 40 calls a year to over 240 in the worst year of that drought. We never slept. This year, we have had sporadic "bursts" of grass fires that come in spurts. Now that all the vegetation is dry and dormant, it is happening a lot more often than it was in October or November. In fact, our VFD has been out with six others at a fire all afternoon and just cleared from that fire a few minutes ago. We are fairly wet here, but dry dormant vegetation doesn't retain moisture and having wet, muddy ground means the firefighting brush trucks often get stuck in the mud. That's happening at pretty much every fire in our county since it rained hard last week and the week before. The folks in SE OK are in serious trouble and will have a very severe winter fire season. So will the counties just across the Red River from us. (They already are.) Been there before...not only in 2005-2006 but also the last half of 2007, 2008 and the first 4 months of 2009. I dread it. Every morning, I check several fire sites, including the fire weather forecast from the NWS and the OKFire site available via the Mesonet before I come to GardenWeb. Our firefighters know I watch those fire weather websites like a hawk and I let them know when they're facing a High to Extreme Fire Weather Day, or let them know when our county's fire danger ramps up from Low or Moderate to High, Very High or Extreme. The worst fires I've heard of lately have been in central OK where several recent fires have spread to and damaged/destroyed homes and other structures. It is going to be a long winter. Rain won't help much, if any, at this point. In our county, the Keetch-Byram Drought Index is very low because we have had lots of rain since September. However, some counties have KBDIs in the 500s, and that is very serious stuff because the KBDI tells you how intense your fires are likely to become. I don't know that 2011 will be as bad statewide as 2005-2006 was, but for the very dry portions of the state, including parts of central OK and southeastern OK, it has that potential. Rainfall can be deceiving because a lot depends on when the rain falls. We were dry and burning like crazy here in Love County in Jan-April of 2009. Then, on either April 29th or 30th, 12.89" of rain fell. Now, if you had looked at our rainfall total for 2009 at the end of April, you would have thought we had grear rainfall, but that was not really true---what we had was great rainfall on one day only. I say it isn't that bad here yet and it isn't, but there are fires in our county virtually every day. We had an awfully bad one on Jan. 2nd and another pretty aggressive one today. I wouldn't want to be a firefighter in SE OK this winter because they are going to be incredibly busy. Dawn

Jeanie, I know the red clay pot look well (unfortunately). Our little weekly newspaper arrived and here's what they are showing for rainfall from our local co-op weather observer: Precip Total For March So Far: 0.26" Ave. Precip for March: 3.31" Precip Total for 2011 So Far: 2.25" Ave. Rainfall Thru End of March: 6.91" As y'all can see, we have a little bit of a rain deficit occurring. Paula, I'm not surprised at the survey results. I feel the same way. It is sort of playing the odds. Even if we have hail or tornadoes, what are the odds they'll hit any given person's property? Fairly small. If we have widespread drought, it hits everyone. If we have wind-driven, uncontrolled wildfires, they too hit everyone in their pathway. Why not take a chance on rain/hail/tornadoes instead, knowing the odds might be more in your favor when it comes to avoiding "trouble". Poor western OK where the drought is already "Extreme". Their wheat crop isn't going to produce (I'm not even sure if it sprouted) and what in the world will they feed the livestock? The agricultural producers in SW OK are being slammed by Extreme Drought in spring which, if they're like SC OK, is usually their best season for good rainfall. I am trying to decide what to put in the ground, what to put in containers, and what to give up on before I even start. It is hard to decide. I know from previous experience that there is no way I can water enough to keep the whole garden in production in a droughty summer, especially if the drought begins in spring and we're already very dry before the traditional summer dry season starts. I think it likely I'm going to push pretty hard to have most all of the garden planted by the end of March, unless I see something in the forecast that stops me. That will give my garden April and May to produce and possibly all of June if water rationing doesn't kick in or something. By July, I doubt I could keep watering enough to make a difference and watering at that point just doesn't seem to do enough good. I am formulating my drought strategy now, and will post a thread about it sometime this weekend, but know for sure it will involve planting peppers in containers with water-retaining granules because I gotta have my peppers! Tomatoes probably will get closer than usual spacing because with limited moisture, they won't get as big as usual. I know how to adapt for drought, but just need to think about the steps I'll take and in what order I'll do them. I probably would have started fewer tomatoes or maybe not even have started the second round if I'd realized earlier that drought looms large on the horizon. Paula, I may have more to give away instead of less because I may put fewer in the ground. : ) If I plant in the ground too early and all mine freeze, on the other hand, I might have to use my back-ups for myself and wouldn't have as many to bring to the fling. Life is so complicated when the weather doesn't cooperate. Lisa, I am not ashamed to say that last summer I openly wished for a "strong tropical storm" or a "weak hurricane" to hit the Texas coast and send a big plume of moisture towards OK. I couldn't help myself. We were so hot and dry, and the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas already had flooded repeatedly....so I wasn't really wishing it on them, but figured they were already getting hit anyway. Sure enough, in early September we had residual moisture reach us from the Texas Gulf Coast/Mexican border area and we had 9" of rain that month, so it worked for us! At least maybe this year your peonies won't get slammed by rain and hail. We can always find something about a drought to appreciate (no mud!) but I'd still rather not have drought. As irritating as drought is to all of us gardeners, think about what it does to the farmers, ranchers and orchardists. It can deeply affect their livelihood. It is incredible the way our weather swings back and forth like a pendulum from drought to flood and back to drought again. That's one of the worst things to think about---how drought usually ends with flooding. The old saying "It takes a flood to end a drought" has proven true in our years here in Oklahoma. Dawn

I was really hoping the D-4 category would be some other part of SW OK, but we got less than a tenth of an inch from those storms last week so I'm not surprised it's here. I'm barely over the line into D-4, so I guess it could be worse. Grandfield hasn't had a tenth of an inch of rain in 167 days! Leslie

Not the best year I've ever had, what with the horrendously late start to most things. Considering what all we've had to do to break new ground, I'm pretty pleased to have anything at this point. And, really, I consider this year to be all about learning the place & getting things prepped for next year. Anything else is a bonus. That said, we're getting a meager supply of tomatoes now, a few summer squash here and there, a few handfuls of ground cherries, and a decent bunch of cukes each day right now. I try to stay away from the sweet & hot peppers except for once every week or so, in hopes that at least some of them ripen fully before I pick them. (I'm so impatient with peppers and them being so incredibly yummy this year makes it even harder.) The onion crop was a roaring success and the beans have just begun to blossom. Potatoes are starting to die back here and there but I'm not expecting any sort of large crop as most were TPS and I'm on a learning curve with spuds right now. I think we'll get a decent corn crop but am not counting on much winter squash. The watermelons and muskmelons are going great guns, although they're still very small fruits at this point, having been planted so late in the year. I tell you what -- we've worked our butts off this year and will enjoy this winter like no other. Diane