Pittsburgh’s National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for Wednesday, April 11, advising against any burning throughout the day.

“We’re going to have conditions (Wednesday) that, if a fire started at some location in the area, it would have the right conditions to spread very quickly,” meteorologist Rich Redmond said.

According to a release by the weather service, winds are expected to exceed 20 mph with low humidity and temperatures in the mid-70s.

“So, what that means is it’s going to be very dry, the air is going to be very dry,” Redmond said. “The ground is drying up as it’s been drying up for the last couple of days, and we’re going to have breezy conditions in the afternoon.”

Dry debris from winter and recent windstorms make conditions particularly dangerous Wednesday.

“We were starting to green up, but we haven’t reached that level of green we see normally in late spring,” Redmond said. “So, there’s plenty of ‘dead fuels’ laying on the ground that could burn very quickly.”

“It’s really telling people to avoid starting fires outdoors, because if a fire does start to spread, it will be the right conditions to spread very quickly,” Redmond said.

For more information about wildfires and burn restrictions visit the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website at dcnr.pa.gov/communities/wildfire.