News File Photo The Alpena Fire Department and EMS station is pictured on Wednesday.

ALPENA — As Michigan continues to experience dry weather and extreme wildfire conditions, local fire officials are urging residents to do all they can to keep their back yard bonfires contained.

Andy Marceau, community risk reduction officer of the Alpena City Fire Department, said residents of the county need to take proper care of their fires in this dry period.

“We are so dry,” Marceau said. “We are so in dire straits and we have to get the word out. We want people to enjoy summertime activities, but they have to do it safely.”

Fire officials have been called upon in recent weeks to investigate numerous reports of grass and camp fires, including one earlier this week in Sanborn Township fire originating from a burn barrel.

Amid the dry conditions, fog and smoke have blanketed Alpena this week too — along with the numerous spots in the Midwest and East Coast — due to wildfire smoke drifting in from Canada.

On Wednesday, Brooklyn, New York, experienced smoke and air pollution at a level of 320 on the Air Quality Index — a ranking that measures air quality — and was deemed hazardous. In all, an estimated 90 million people across 16 states were under air quality alerts.

Alpena’s air quality level was at 112 AQI on Wednesday night, a number considered unhealthy for sensitive groups.

If people are going to have backyard bonfires, Marceau advocates holding them in a proper fire ring. To start the fire, he recommends paper as kindling along with twigs. Marceau also urges people to use clean, dry wood in their bonfires, keep a water source nearby and when the night ends, pour the water and stir the fire to put it out completely.

In terms of burning yard debris, it’s illegal to burn any in the city; however, other townships allow the burning of brush when the DNR permits it.

“I live in a township just a mile up the road,” Marceau said. “I have a big pile of brush that I want to burn. I don’t dare burn it. You need to go to the DNR website to receive a burn permit.”

The DNR asks residents to look on its website and check the state map whether their county is permitted to burn yard debris.

On Wednesday, all of Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula was at brown level on the DNR’s map, which means debris burning is prohibited in all of the selected counties. For the past few weeks, it’s been mostly at a brown level.

“We want you to… roast marshmallows, whatever else you want to do,” Marceau said. “But at the end of the night, you’ve got to be a good citizen. It needs to be fully out.”

DNR officials estimate that they’re fought close to 200 wildfires already this season, covering more than 3,000 acres. The biggest one happened last weekend when a campfire on private land near Grayling sparked a wildfire that covered more than 2,400 acres.

For more information on burn permits, visit the Michigan DNR website at michigan.gov/dnr.