MACON, Ga. — Love it or hate it, Central Georgia's had some dry weather this summer, and it's a big concern for farmers and firefighters.
While parts of Central Georgia got some rain on Thursday, it hasn't been enough to take some counties out of a drought monitor.
"It seems like now we've had extremely amount of very dry weather with no rain lately. The temperatures have been very high, sometimes in the triple digits," Macon-Bibb Fire Educator Jeremy Webb said.
With the current dry heat conditions, he said that's a good recipe for bad fires.
"We urge the public to, to use extreme caution when throwing out cigarette butts and things like that. Properly dispose of cigarettes - they start many brush fires," Webb said.
And because it's so dry, he said once a fire starts, it's hard to stop.
"If you do see burning, or smoldering definitely call the fire department immediately. Time is of the essence for us to extinguish, and, and mitigate that fire emergency as quick as we can before it spreads," Webb said.
This year, he's even more worried as the Fourth of July approaches.
That's because the federal weather agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, listed more than a dozen Central Georgia counties in the moderate drought category this week.
That includes Macon-Bibb, Houston, Baldwin and more.
"Fireworks get extremely hot even with, you shoot in the air, they have to come down. And you don't want them to come down and land on trees or any type of that dry vegetation," Webb said.
Farmers like Carl Oliver are just as stressed with the dry conditions.
"Everything has suffered. We're gonna have yield losses I'm sure. Because something that stays stressed as long as it has will never come back," Oliver said.
He said his crops are still alive because of irrigation, but that's draining his pockets dry.
"It's expensive, it really is. And of course, mine is just a small rig, and it, it costs about a $150 every time it goes all the way around," Oliver said.
So while Thursday's rain was a nice surprise, he said he's hoping it keeps on raining.
Webb also said the 54 counties in Georgia are under a summer-burn ban through the end of September.
That means unless you have a special permit from the Forestry Commission, it's illegal to burn most things outside.