Dry, windy, weather has caused concern about the growing danger of wildfires across West Texas and Southern New Mexico.

Last year at this time the Bureau of Land Management had already completed a prescribed burn of 30 acres in the Dripping Springs area of the Organ Mountains, but last month weather conditions prohibited it.

“Last year we did the burn in February, and it's only 30 acres, but when we had the fire in June we were able to anchor into that and save it from going way far north on the mountains. We also saved a bunch of historic structures up there in the Dripping Springs area,” said Ryan Whiteaker, fuels specialist with the BLM.

Last June the Dripping Springs area saw a fire that burned for days. The BLM said investigators never determined the cause, but they did rule it man-made. This year they hope to prevent a recurrence.

“We have a controlled burn scheduled for Friday out on McGregor Range in Otero County, and then we're going to do Dripping Springs potentially next Tuesday,” said Whiteaker.

He said the Dripping Springs area was scheduled to have burns Thursday, but the red flag warning forced the agency to cancel those plans.

“It pretty much it shuts us down depending on what our objectives are but for these burns we don't want it to be this windy and dry,” he said.

The BLM said further to the north some rain and snow helped to moisten the ground, but in the south, the fire potential outlook shows increasingly drier conditions in the months to come. The entire state of Texas has a significant fire potential.

“I would say we are in a high fire danger right now. We're not quite to the extreme yet but give it time,” Whiteaker said.

The red flag warning expires Thursday evening at 7 p.m.