Though snow was falling over much of the state Friday, state and local fire officials were already thinking about the fire danger for the coming summer.

In fact, the Maine Forest Service this week issued a news release encouraging landowners to burn their slash and backyard debris before the fresh snow melts away. And the caution comes with good reason: Maine’s forests could be particularly susceptible to forest fires this summer.

Debris from the ice storm of 1998 has left much of the state with higher-than-normal fuel loads on the forest floor. The fallen limbs and treetops have dried in the summer sun over the last two years, making them seasoned and ready to provide fuel for forest fires.

Jim Downie, a spokesman for the Maine Forest Service, said Wednesday that the areas of concern in the state are in parts of Hancock County and southern Maine, areas where the ice storm hit the hardest. And while the debris on the ground means that forest fires are likely to spread more quickly, the Forest Service isn’t ready to say the situation constitutes an emergency.

“We’re not going to say the sky is falling,” Downie said, “but we’re not going to take it lightly either. We’ve got a pretty good handle on where those areas are. Eventually it will come down and rot.”

Over the last two years, Downie said, forest rangers have taken repeated flights over some of the hardest-hit regions of Maine’s forest in an attempt to identify which sections of the state have the most fuel load on the ground.

The data has been used to produce a map that identifies the range of damage from trace to high. The map is available through the forest service Web site at www.state.me.us/doc/mfs/

The information also helped determine where federal assistance funds earmarked for ice storm cleanup would go, said Downie.

Of the more than $25 million in federal aid Maine has received for ice storm cleanup, about $3 million was set aside for grants to local fire departments for firefighting equipment, training and fire prevention work. Roughly $200,000 of that money was administered in Hancock County.

“Hardwood [on the ground] is probably a little more of a problem in Hancock County than other parts of the state,” Downie said. “I don’t think it poses a large problem in all of Hancock County though.”

The areas of most damage are in and around Branch Lake and the forest land surrounding Ellsworth, Downie said. Smaller, isolated pockets of land in the county also have lots of material on the ground, Downie said.

Jon Mickel, Sorrento fire chief, said he and his department spent a lot of hours cleaning up the mess left behind by the ice storm. Most of the nearly $18,000 his department received went toward wages for those brushing back the slash near town roads, firehouses and the water tower that feeds Sorrento’s fire hydrants.

“The ice storm knocked down lots of trees that, as they aged, became seasoned trees on the forest floor,” Mickel said. “If you add all of this fuel on the forest floor, it’s going to make the fire hotter and spread faster and make it more intense.”

Mickel said the federal aid has helped local fire departments by “giving them the money to mitigate this threat.” But even with the aid money, Mickel said, there remains work to be done. “It’s still a mess. You just can’t clean it all up.”

Jim Souders, Gouldsboro’s assistant fire chief, also said the forest in his town is littered with slash that could contribute to high fuel load on the ground, though it is a result of both the 1998 ice storm and recent cutting operations in the area.

“The slash is pretty bad,” Souders said Thursday. “The ice storm damage is just starting to show up now.”

Souders said his department has found “some areas of great concern” in the woods surrounding the town, and has been actively issuing burning permits to help landowners clear their property of the material.

“We’ve put a lot of time in on that ice storm,” Souders said. “Especially in forest fire protection. Of course you don’t get it all, but we’re really pushing to get it out now.”

While the material on the ground could help to fuel a fire, Souders said the real threat comes when the topsoil dries to a point where fire can move through roots and materials compacted into the soil. As the summer months progress, Souders said, the topsoil will dry up and enhance the force of a forest fire.

“It doesn’t take long down here in the sunny, windy coastal area to dry up the surface,” Souders said.

The news release issued by the forest service earlier this week encouraged people to get their burning permits before the snow melts from the woods so that the surface will be wet when they burn their slash. Fires that escape a permit holder’s control, the release said, can result in up to $10,000 in fines and the costs of damage to neighboring property.

Robert McKenney, Ellsworth fire chief, said his department hasn’t noticed an increase in burning permits issued this spring. The majority of those being issued, however, are for ice storm cleanup, he said.

McKenney said his biggest concern isn’t so much what is on the ground, but rather the dead limbs and treetops that are still caught in branches and have yet to come down. He also said many trees died slowly from the damage done by the ice storm and have remained standing. Those trees, McKenney said, pose a greater threat because they have dried more rapidly than would material that came to the ground.

Meanwhile, Downie said he understands that towns may be particularly concerned about forest fire danger as a result of the ice storm, but he emphasizes that careful burning and control will minimize the risk.

“We want to make sure we put things in the proper perspective too,” Downie said. While the higher-than-expected fuel loads are something to be cautious about, “it’s not a large, large concern for us.”