The region's fire fighters are bracing for the upcoming fire season on the back of three wet summers.
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Rural Fire Service Canobolas Zone district manager Brett Bowden says there is more grass in the region.
He's anticipating it will soon dry out under a yet-to-be-declared El Nino.
An abnormally warm July that saw the highest average temperature for the month on record. It was almost a whole 2.5 degrees above the long-term mean of 9.5 degrees.
The RFS has already experienced its first fires although the official fire season in the Orange and Cabonne region run from October 1 until late March.
"We had one at Mullion Creek a few days ago where some property owners were burning off some grassland and some vegetation close to the roadside and we got some embers to the other side of the road," Mr Bowden said.
"The fire actually jumped the road and onto somebody else's place so we had about five tankers there and a couple of support resources there to assist in just bringing that fire under control.
"It wasn't difficult to control at this time of the year but the fact that we're having five RFS resources to battle a grass fire that had jumped a bitumen roadway in July is somewhat concerning for what could happen during the summer."
He said when an El Nino is declared it will mean warmer and drier conditions and with more dry grass than usual the region's brigades could be busy this summer.
"I suppose the thing that we'd like people to do is to look to do whatever mitigation they can on their grassland fuel," he said.
Mr Bowden said increasing stock levels in the rural sector would help manage grass cover but he's urging all landholders to take action now to reduce the summer fire risk.
For those who don't have stock but have a lot of grass, particularly around yards, homes and sheds, he's encouraging them to start clearing that up by slashing, grazing, burning and doing.
"You want to be doing that now and not when the fire is coming over the back fence," Mr Bowden said.
He said fire danger ratings were updated last year and the four ratings are now moderate, high, extreme and catastrophic, and he's urging people who live or are travelling through bushland areas to be aware of the ratings on a given day.
"If it is a high fire danger now it means that it is a high fire danger and if it is an extreme fire danger then if you live in a bushland area that's probably not a good day to be at home if you haven't got a fire plan," he said.
"We had an extreme fire danger day and we got to about 4pm and we thought we pretty much hade got through that day unscathed without ignition of fire."
He said it was a day with 60km/h westerly winds and the temperature was pushing 40 degrees.
"We had a fencing contractor who was using welding equipment on a rural property and they started a fire and that fire quickly escalated and became a fire that took us a week to put out," Mr Bowden said.
We had one at Mullion Creek a few days ago where some property owners were burning off some grassland and some vegetation close to the roadside and we got some embers to the other side of the road.
- RFS Canobolas Zone district manager Brett Bowden
"If that contractor had of been aware of what the fire danger rating was perhaps he would not have made the decision to carry on welding that day.
"It was a total fire ban that day, it's illegal to be using hot work equipment during a total fire ban, it's against the law.
"He ended up with a $2500 fine, which wasn't a very conciliatory really when we've got maybe 50-60 volunteers out there for a week trying to manage that fire ground, not to mention the expense to the community and the tax payers about the cost of that particular operation."
He said a fire on an extreme fire danger day is going to have consequences for people maybe 20 or 30 kilometres away from where the fire starts.
"Particularly on a year like this year where we've got quite significant grassland fuels and grass fires start quite easily and they escalate rapidly, given the right weather conditions an they will spread quite fast, faster than most people thing and they can do a significant amount of damage in a very small amount of time," he said.
Mr Bowden said fire seasons are getting worse globally and this week the Rural Fire Service got its own Chanook helicopter to fight fires instead on relying on helicopters loaned from other places due to the increasing cross-over of fire seasons.
He said that helicopter carries 11,000 litres, which is equivalent to three or four of the four-wheel-drive tankers, which can carry just over 3000 litres.
"The use of black hawk helicopters now and the larger aircraft are becoming a staple part of our fire fighting arsenal now," he said.
"The key is if a fire starts we want to keep it as small as possible as quickly as possible.
"Generally speaking we see that fire seasons are becoming more severe."
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