The Latest: Outside fires banned in Alabama amid fire threat

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The Latest on Alabama wildfires (all times local):

12:15 p.m.

Forestry officials are banning outside burning across most of Alabama because of the threat of wildfires.

Coleen Vansant of the Alabama Forestry Commission says the fire alert took effect Monday and covers 46 of the state’s 67 counties.

The fire alert means no outside fires are allowed in the region. Officials hope it will stem the spread of wildfires in drought-plagued areas of the state.

Vansant says the ban will remain in effect until Alabama receives the substantial amount of rain that will be needed to reduce the threat of wildfires.

The Forestry Commission reports that wildfires have burned more than 3,300 hundred acres of land in Alabama in the past week and more than 7,200 acres in the past month.

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11:08 a.m.

Wildfires are burning across Alabama as drought conditions worsen, and forecasters said Monday there isn’t enough rain in the forecast to lessen the threat anytime soon.

The Alabama Forestry Commission reported that about 70 blazes burned around 730 acres of land on Sunday alone. The situation is worse in north Alabama, where drought conditions are most severe.

The state issued a fire danger warning for 46 of Alabama’s 67 counties last week, and officials said it will continue until rain returns to the state.

The National Drought Mitigation Center reported that 86 percent of Alabama is abnormally dry, and northeast Alabama is particularly hard hit. More than 10 counties in that area are experiencing an extreme drought, and there’s another pocket of extreme drought in east-central Alabama along the Georgia border.

Statistics show drought conditions are far worse in Alabama this year than in 2015, and National Weather Service meteorologist Connor Baird said the long-range forecast doesn’t show any rain predictions that would reverse the trend.

“That may not happen for a while unfortunately,” he said. “It might be a little while before we get rain.”

Confidence in the rain-free forecasts is reinforced by the fact that October is typically the driest month in Alabama, he said.

The Forestry Commission reported that wildfires have burned more than 3,300 hundred acres of land in Alabama in the past week and more than 7,200 acres in the past month.

Some of the worst drought conditions in the state are in metro Birmingham.

Water is so low at Lake Purdy, which supplies drinking water to the state’s most populous area, that visitors are finding arrowheads on the lake bottom that is usually submerged. The lake, which holds about 2 billion gallons of water, is falling rapidly and is now only 35 percent full, according to the Birmingham Water Works.