Firefighters across the state braced for a potentially dangerous day for brush fires after warnings of “critical” fire conditions were issued Thursday.

The National Weather Service issued an urgent Fire Weather Watch for Friday morning through early Friday evening for every county in the state except for Coos County.

Officials are warning residents against burning anything outdoors during the day.

“With the lack of rain, much of Northern New England continues to be in a dry spell. The dry conditions combined with increasingly gusty winds (Friday) up to 30 mph, as well as relative humidity values in the 20 to 30 percent range, may produce critical fire weather conditions on Friday,” the weather service statement said.

The lack of snow has left the ground dryer than usual, and has left plenty of “fuels” — twigs, branches, leaves, etc. — to feed fires.

“Any grass or brush fires that ignite could spread and become out of control rapidly,” the weather service warned.

Making things worse is the lack of a “canopy” of living plants, leaving nothing but dry fuels for brush fires.