I need to give everybody a heads up here, I know that this has been on everybody’s mind with the super dry weather conditions here in SE Wisconsin.

· The NOAA weather service has upgraded our drought conditions to D2 (severe).
· A burn ban is now in place for the entire Bong Recreational Area.

If we have a launch we would have to ban sparkys and let’s say the launch goes without any major fires*one could*say we would be very lucky and extremely foolish.

So here we go, I’m making the call, unless this extremely dry condition lifts at Bong we must postpone ECOF until conditions improve.

At this time no significant rain fall is expected before ECOF. Keep in mind that even if we get a really good gully washer the existing dead dry grass will remain,*with the current conditions all it would take to start a major blaze is*a small “A” impulse to land in the grass, light off its ejection charge and we*would have a very dangerous situation to deal with.

I brought this up with Dan, Sather and Scotty, we all agree on this.



Mark Hackler

President WOOSH NAR Section 558