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The fires are back, but in healthy, controlled amounts this time. Ashland Fire and Rescue officials said expect to see smoke during the rainy season because there’s “LOTS of burning to get through before fire season 2019.” Controlled, or prescribed, burns started Tuesday and will continue through the season if there’s plenty of rain. Chris Chambers, Director of Forestry for Ashland Fire and Rescue, said teams burned about 222 acres of burn piles Tuesday and Wednesday. Sounds like a lot, but there’s 3,278 more acres to go before the next fire season. The burn season started with 3,500 acres of burn piles to go through, which translates to 102,650 individual burn piles, Chambers said. “If history is a teacher, we will not (get through all the burn piles),” Chambers said. “Last year we had around 3,400 acres of burn piles and we got about 2,053 done, which was our best year.” Right now, it’s all dependent on the daily approval or denial from state smoke regulators. The Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t allow any amount of smoke to drift into town. So, weather patterns are monitored closely and burn days are limited. But, because the burning is conducted in a 14,000-acre circle around town, trace amounts of smoke can be detected in the burn areas, and some smoke may occasionally find its way into town. However, the air quality will not deteriorate the way it has the past couple of summers. Chambers said there was a very small amount of smoke circulating Tuesday, but the air quality monitor on top of the downtown fire station reported “good quality” air all day. The state policy is up for a review. Slightly more smoke would be allowed in town if amended. That means a lot more work could be completed each burn season. The work is done by the Ashland Fire Resiliency Stewardship Project (AFR). Besides the city of Ashland, the other project partners are Lomakatsi Restoration Project , the U.S. Forest Service (Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest) and The Nature Conservancy . Throughout the year they cut down dangerous “fuel ladders,” such as plants that grow closely to the ground, or in thickets, that would cause a much larger fire if the surrounding wildlands ever caught fire. These fuel ladders are then tucked away into neat piles to dry out for a year or so before burned. This work helps protect Ashland from a massive wildfire by thinning a mixture of forest service, city, Bureau of Land Management and private lands. “Ashland still has a very high level of wildfire risk,” Chambers said. “We are doing all we can to make Ashland a safer place to live and protect out watershed and this is part of that work.” The project area extends from the Interstate 5 to the eastern side of Siskiyou Summit, towards Emigrant Lake and to the western side of Wagner Creek on the Talent side, Chambers said. Chambers said he was expecting to conduct controlled burns Thursday, but as of 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, he had yet to hear from state regulators. For updated information on controlled burns and how to protect yourself in smoky conditions, visit AFR’s website at ashlandwatershed.org . To sign up for the Nixle alert system, go to www.ashland.or.us/nixle . Contact Daily Tidings reporter Caitlin Fowlkes at [email protected] or 541-776-4496. Follow her on Twitter @cfowlkes6 .