Photo by the U.S. Forest Service Pictured from Sunday was the Cobham Hill fire in Watson Township from a reconnaissance plane. An estimated 227 acres were impacted by the wildfire.

The dangers from two wildfires that started on Thursday are largely gone, but they continued to burn through the weekend.

The Cobham Hill fire in Watson Township was estimated at 227 acres as of Sunday. The Hemlock fire in Glade Township was even bigger, at an estimated 261 acres, according to Warren County Public Information Officer Cecile Stelter.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, the Warren County Public Safety Department, and numerous local volunteer fire departments have been involved in the suppression and containment of the fires.

“Neither fire is 100 percent contained,” Stelter said on Monday. “There are still smokes. They are well in the interior. The perimeter is very secure. Things are looking really good.”

“As the control lines are completed around the perimeter of these two fires, the lack of fuels is preventing most active fire,” she said. “Small smoke plumes from hot spots in the fire are occasionally visible. Continued monitoring will be conducted on a regular basis.”

Some rainfall over the weekend helped remove the dry conditions that fed the fire.

No structures were lost to the fires and no injuries have been reported. The causes of the fires have not been determined and officials continue to investigate.

There have been many fires in the county so far this season. For the vast majority of local fires, volunteer departments are the ones doing the fighting. The same was true at the beginning of the Cobham Hill and Hemlock fires.

“We can’t thank the volunteer fire departments enough,” Stelter said. “They’ve been responding all spring long. They have been really outstanding.”

“The volunteer fire departments are the ones who stepped in and saved the structures on these two fires,” she aid. “We’re very grateful to have them in our area.”

The weather conditions that fanned the flames late last week – warm temperatures, no precipitation, and higher winds – are gone, but the fire danger still exists.

“We are looking at lower temperatures, higher humidity, but things still have the potential of drying out,” Stelter said. “If we have winds and warmer temperatures, we could be right back in those conditions.”

According to DCNR, “these fires most frequently start in someone’s backyard and travel through dead grass and leaves into bordering woodlands.”

“They really need to be using care with any outdoor burning,” Stelter said.

Those who are burning in the wildland-urban interface – where residential properties abut wildlands, should take precautions:

“To reduce your risk of a fire igniting within the Home Ignition Zone (the area surrounding your residence), it is recommended that you:

¯ Keep the area at 0-5 feet (Immediate Zone) clear of all combustible materials;

¯ Create breaks within the landscape at 5-30 feet (Intermediate Zone);

¯ Include interruptions within the forested landscape at 30-100 feet (Extended Zone).”

A temporary flight restriction over the fires has been lifted. The presence of drones can endanger firefighting aircraft. “If we see a drone, we’ll have to pull our air resources off immediately,” Stelter said.

Those aircraft, while available if needed, were not at the scene for the past two days. The flight restriction could be put back into effect if conditions begin to dry out again. “People can always call our office to see if it would be safe,” Stelter said.