Fire danger increases for the interior West

The risk for new wildfires in the western U.S. is rising as windy, dry heat takes over.

Transcript

00:00Let's check on what's going on in the West right now.

00:03A lot of wild weather that is for sure.

00:06We're still tracking that fire threat here as we head throughout the weekend.

00:10This is going to go through Saturday,

00:12so we still have a ways to go where we have that elevated fire risk,

00:16and that does include the Northern Rockies,

00:18Boise included, Idaho Falls,

00:20down through Salt Lake City,

00:22and even through parts of central Utah as well,

00:25with that persistent and hot and dry air not letting up.

00:29That just creates those conditions that we need,

00:32and it's not going to take much to spark a fire,

00:34especially with it being so dry and also pretty windy.

00:39Now, let's check on the park fire really quickly here.

00:41It did start back in July on the 24th,

00:45and it has grown to 429,400 plus acres burned and containment is still at 55 percent.

00:56Now, the cause for the park fire was human.

00:59Wildfire smoke still going to be a concern if you look northward,

01:05especially across the sky here through the middle half of the week.

01:10We are tracking some thicker bouts of smoke,

01:13especially there where we have that wildfire risk as well.

01:16That's no good as we head across the Northern Rockies.

01:19Now, further east, we are tracking that threat for

01:21severe weather here Wednesday afternoon through Wednesday night.

01:24Downpours hail, even tracking some localized damaging wind gusts.

01:27The story stays the same as we head into Thursday.

01:30Heads up, some strong thunderstorms from Grand Forks.