Insects and disease are worrisome enough.

Throw in a protracted drought and taxing heat, one that has left the woodlands bone dry, and West Virginia foresters are holding their breath as the fall fire season inches closer.

“I’m not going to be like Chicken Little and say the sky is falling, but unless we get some appreciable rain, this is shaping up like a very difficult fall fire season,” Assistant State Forester Matt Dillon said Thursday.

How dry has it been?

Raleigh County normally averages 43.7 inches of rain in a year, but through the first eight months of 2007, the amount has been a paltry 33.09 inches, Dillon pointed out.

“That’s an indicator of how it’s going in the state,” he said.

Across West Virginia, the worst-hit forests have been those in the southern coalfields and the Eastern Panhandle, the forestry official said.

“Some of the trees have been pre-stressed due to insect or disease.”

When nature gets stingy with rain, as has been the case the past few weeks, the situation only worsens and threat of fires increases, he said.

One plus is the high humidity in West Virginia and another is the natural hardy nature of the hardwoods.

“They can withstand a little bit of drought, but if they’re pre-disposed to some issues, whether it be disease or insects, it will shove them over the edge,” Dillon said.

In the fall, fallen leaves are on the ground getting hit by direct sunlight, and the same holds true in early spring before the green foliage returns. Winter ushers in colder temperatures and snow, again minimizing the threat.

“Fall is when things get rolling,” Dillon said.

Soil moisture is a key factor. Without a sufficient amount, the threat of autumn fires is exacerbated. Quick rain showers that typically punctuate a sultry afternoon are of little benefit since they tend to run off.

“A steady, very slow rain is what we need,” Dillon said.

Some precipitation has occurred of late in the Eastern Panhandle, but the southern coalfields beg for moisture.

“Southern counties are bone dry,” he said.

Dillon appealed to landowners to employ common sense before engaging in any burning. One reliable method of assessing dryness is the depth of a nearby stream or creek.

“If you want to do some fall cleaning or raking leaves, that type of stuff, I tell people to look at the creek as a gauge for how dry things are,” he said, adding that extremely dry conditions are risky since fires can easily escape.

When the fall season opens Oct. 1, outdoor burning is forbidden until 4 p.m.

One danger in an extended dry spell is the lack of soil moisture that forestry officials are starting to detect.

“If a forest fire does ignite, instead of just burning on the surface, you going to get duff fires,” Dillon said.

“While a fire burning on the surface burns up leaves and twigs and brush and small saplings, a duff fire goes underground, burning up the root system. For the Division of Forestry, that makes it a lot more difficult to contain those fires. We’ve got to go in there and dig through all the soil and get down to contain the fires. And that’s tough work.”

If matters worsen, there’s another option, a seldom-used one — shutting off the forests to fall hunting.

“That’s really, really extreme, but that is an option,” Dillon said. “The last time the woods were closed was in 1991.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com