BEND, OR -- Oregon Department of Forestry declared fire season begins Monday morning for ODF-protected lands in Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson County. "While we’re just now entering fire season, we’ve been preparing for fire season, well, since fire season ended last year," says ODF's Christie Shaw. She tells KBND News recent rainfall helped push the season a little, but now, "We’ve had a few escaped debris burns in the last couple weeks and the fire behavior from those burns - we’re being challenged more for containing those fires."

The declaration doesn't apply to the rest of ODF's Central Oregon District, which stretches up to The Dalles and over to John Day. Shaw says that's because other regions are not struggling with the same drought impacts, "We’re seeing all of those conditions in this High Desert area. Grasses and stuff are going to start curing out, if they haven’t already started that process and so they just are burning more readily."

Last year, the season started May 15 - the earliest ever. Shaw says this year is closer to typical. Although, she anticipates it'll be a tough summer, "If you look at Predictive Services that kind of give us the forecast for what fire season’s going to be like, they have really kind of put the mark in the Central Oregon area that this is going to be a challenging fire season for us."

With the declaration, the use of exploding targets and tracer ammunition is banned, so is backyard debris burning. There are also restrictions on forest operations. Shaw says even people using equipment to create defensible space need to take precautions, "You’re going to need to do a fire watch for that to make sure for three hours after you shut down equipment, whether it’s a chainsaw, whatever it might be. You’re going to be wanting to watch and monitor for fires, that the hot exhaust didn’t spark something, that your chain didn’t hit a rock and spark something." You'll find a complete guide to restrictions on ODF's website.