Summer and the 2007 vacation season is just beginning in most parts of the USA. With it, also comes the season of the wildfires and forest fires. You may have read about the ongoing fires in Florida and the beginning brush fires in California and wondered if they could affect your vacation plans.

Typically, there are three areas in the USA that are prone to wildfires. These are the jungle fires in Florida, the brush fires in California and other arid Southwestern states, and the forest fires that can affect the wilderness regions across a vast area of the Western USA.

Florida is suseptible to wildfires only during periods of drought or low rainfall. These usually occur in late winter or early spring before the summer rains douse them with incessant precipitation. It is hard to believe that Florida can suffer from drought as there is water everywhere. Lakes, streams, rivers and swamps surround you. Yet, lack of rainfall and incessant sunshine can dry out the dense mat of jungle foliage and produce fire hazards. Such wildfires do not normally produce spectacular walls of flame as in the Western forests, instead the masses of jungle foliage burns slowly like a pile of garbage producing dense clouds of acrid smoke. This can reduce visibility to such an extent, that highways must be closed and people must be evacuated. There is little physical danger to tourists in the area, but it sure can make your vacation in sunny Florida rather unpleasant.

California and the arid portions of the Southwest have a very different problem with wildfires. The coastal hills and the inland deserts do not have vast forests. Instead, the hills are covered with grasses and shrubs and the canyons are clustered with low trees. During the hottest months of summer, these plants dry into highly flamible tinder. This is especially true when the normal moist winds off of the Pacific Ocean are replaced by the hot dry "Santa Anna" winds from the eastern deserts. A single spark can start a conflagaration that spreads across the hills and through the canyons with incredible speed. Such fires can be very dangerous. They destroy homes and trap residents before they have a chance to escape. Fortunately, tourists are usually warned well away from esisting fires, but you should take care when hiking or camping in such conditions.

Forest fires are the most spectacular and the most damaging of all types of wildfires. They typically occur during the summer months especially during drought conditions. They are likely to occur in the vast wilderness areas especially in the mountainous terrain of many Western states. Such fires can produce huge walls of flame that are driven by winds through the forests, up mountain slopes and across immense areas. Some of them burn for many weeks, consuming thousand of square kilometers of forest before they are eventually extinguished. Fortunately, the wilderness areas in the West are so vast that even the largest forest fires are often located far from any highway, city or tourist attraction. If you intend to visit the wilderness areas of Washington, Oregon, Montana, Colorado or the other mountainous states, it would be prident to check for news of forest fires in the area before you depart.