I'm curious too. It seems like we always get rain lately the day before the current week's drought monitor map updates, so it is obsolete when we see it. The last heavy rainfall in our county which was 2.7" didn't change my county's overall drought status much, so I'm not expecting yesterday's 1.3" to have a major effect either. However, our end of the county did move up from 'Extreme' to 'Severe' so that is progress at least. Eventually all those amounts add up and we get to move from one category to another, but sometimes it seems like it takes forever or it is a process of one step forward followed by two steps back. Texas, on the other hand, slipped much more deeply into drought, with almost half the state in D4. They got rain yesterday too and are getting more today, but I don't know how much it will help them. They have such a huge rain deficit to make up. I meant to come back and link the map of the whole USA so our forum members who post from Texas, Arizone, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas can check and see what it shows for their area, so I'll link it below. It looks like Jay's corner of Kansas is slipping into Exceptional Drought too. Here is a link that might be useful: U S Drought Monitor Map

Bumping this down the page. A new map comes out today and we'll see if drought conditions are improving, worsening or staying the same across the state.

Hi Wantonamara, Welcome to the forum. The drought, heat and fire situation are scary and have been for months now. It is just that everything seems to be escalating almost out of control now in terms of heat, drought, and plants that are going dormant or dying---whether they are native or not. If it is any consolation, I don't want to do anything outside either. I try to do my gardening chores and animal feeding chores very early and very late. Otherwise I attempt to hibernate inside the air-conditioned house. I agree that we have reached the point in most of TX and OK that mowing can be dangerous in terms of sparking a fire. I think it is more dangerous to not mow, so I'd mow, but with a water hose hooked up and ready to go and a bucket of water very close by to where I was mowing, and a rake, shovel and wet burlap bag or other heavy-duty cloth all close to hand. I'd keep a cell phone handy too so I could call 9-1-1 right away if a fire sparked. We are seeing incredibly rapid spread rates here with grassfires, and once they are up and running, they can get into brush and trees very quickly and become full-fledged wildland fires. For about 2 weeks now, I've been watching fires spread more quickly than I've ever seen any fire move in summer. They are moving as if being pushed by 35 to 50 mph winds even though on most days the wind is in the single digits. I'd mow closest to the house and work my way outward if I could so you always have the shortest grass between your house on the one hand and your tractor/mower and the tall grass on the other. Often people start out at the farthest point and work their way inward, but during high fire danger, that's a big risk. Having said all that, if I had those brush piles, and especially because they do contain cedar, I'd consider plowing a WIDE firebreak around the property if that is possible, or at least around all the structures. We've been having very bad fires in the western half of our county this month and you wouldn't believe how many people have started plowing firebreaks around either the entire property or the structures or even both---the outer firebreak just inside the fenceline and the inner firebreak around all the structures. The closer people live to the site of a recent fire, the more likely they are to be out plowing wide firebreaks. A few ranchers are plowing up entire fields. I am not sure if it is for fire prevention or other purposes. (It certainly is far too early and too dry to be plowing in order to plant winter wheat here.) The time to decide to cut back dry landscaping near the house is not when a fire is a few hundred yards away, but rather somewhat earlier than that. I hope it is not a choice I ever have to make. We have worked so hard to plant nice trees that will eventually shade the house quite nicely and I do not want to sacrifice them for fire prevention if I can avoid doing so. We have limbed up all our trees, except for the fruit trees, so that the lowest limbs are 8' above ground in order to keep fire out of the crowns. One thing that anyone with a house in an area prone to wildfire might want to consider is to buy a homeowners kit of sprayable fire retardant that can be sprayed with a simple garden hose. You can spray-coat your house or whatever else you wish to protect in just a few minutes. It isn't terribly inexpensive, but protecting our home with it would cost less than paying the deductible on our homeowner's insurance policy. When fire is near my house, I focus on wetting down the ground on whatever side the fire is approaching from. Other than that, I try to get all the cats and dogs in the house so they are as safe as they can be as long as the house stays safe. Finally, I make sure the car is already parked facing the street and ready to go in case I have to make a run for it. To be honest, when we moved here, wildfire was the last thing on our minds. We've seen several horrid droughts and fire seasons since then, and we have an 'escape plan' in place. You have to. If the fire is close enough you can see flame or smoke, it is too late to be making decisions about what to do----you need to be doing it! Stay safe everyone. We had three fire calls today. That's right. Three in one day. Except in the worst of drought years, that just doesn't happen. It is happening now. There are many, many fire retardants available for use by fire departments, insurance companies (some insurance comapnies hire fire protection companies to come in and spray homes when a fire is approaching, if time permits), and even homeowners. You can find them by Googling, but I'll link one below to get you started. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Thermo-Gel Fire Retardant

This week's Oklahoma Drought Monitor is linked below. As you can see, the state slipped more deeply into drought during the last week covered in this map's reporting period, which includes data submitted by 7 a.m. Tuesday. At this time, 100% of Oklahoma is classified in one of the five drought categories, which range from 'Abnormally Dry' to 'Exceptional Drought'. The milder 'Abnormally Dry' area is now very small while the area classifed as 'Exceptional Drought' includes almost 43% of the state. Any changes (if there are any) resulting from this week's scattered rainfall will show up on next week's map. However, unless you received several inches of rain, it is unlikely your drought category was impacted significantly. In general, drought develops slowly over time and it goes away very slowly over time as well. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Drought Monitor, 07-12-2011