NEW ORLEANS - Crews are working to contain a fire that has burned more than 500 acres of marsh near Bayou Sauvage. U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials are using helicopters to monitor the flames, but they say dry conditions are making that difficult.

"What we believe happened over the weekend is a lightning strike that hit this area out in Bayou Sauvage. This is an area that has had some marsh fires in the past and sometimes when you get this peat burning it just smolders and this can go on for weeks, months and even years," State Climatologist Dr. Barry Keim said.

Bayou Sauvage is right outside New Orleans East, an urban area with plenty of traffic and pedestrians that could be affected by the smoke coming from the wildfire.

"The last time this area was on fire the smoke was so dense it was actually affecting traffic. We got I-10 right there and people driving through at 70 plus miles per hour and if all of a sudden you get shrouded in smoke and can't see where you're going, bad things can happen," Keim said.

Keim says a number of factors have contributed to this wildfire, including the current weather conditions that are breaking records daily.

"We're going to see a lot of temperature records broken, not just for this southeast but really for the whole globe this year. I would not be surprised at the end of this year if it ends up being the warmest on record," Keim said.

So far, there are no burn bans in our area but scorching temperatures and lack of rainfall have local fire departments on high alert and constantly responding to grass fires.

"We just got back from one 15 minutes ago, which is interesting because it was raining a hour ago but it's not enough rain to really wet things up enough," Keim said.

That's why the Independence Volunteer Fire Department made a social media post encouraging those to wait to burn in order to avoid multiple grass fires in a single day.

"The problem you run into with multiple grass fires in one day in a 100 degree weather with a 115 degree heat index it will wear out your manpower," Independence Volunteer Fire Department Captain Cary Radford said.

A link of parishes with burn bans in place can be found here.