The burn ban in Lebanon County may have expired, but caution is being urged due to several ongoing conditions.
Fall winds and drought conditions are still a recipe for potential disaster if caution is not exercised, according to Bob Dowd, director of the Lebanon County Department of Emergency Services.
“We’re not declaring open season on burning and, while the burn ban has expired, conditions, however, are still not ideal for burning and there’s still a lot of risk,” said Dowd. “If you need to do so, please do so very carefully.”
Dowd said the county is urging caution because while “conditions are not what they were, they’re still not great.”
“The risk is still significant at this point, and while it’s not high enough to keep the burn ban in effect, there’s still a significant risk,” he said. “The weather can change and if it does, we’ll re-evaluate the situation at that time. If the fire service agrees, we’ll put another ban into effect.”
The website Weather Spark notes that fall, particularly between the months of mid-November and the end of April, are the windiest time of the year in Pennsylvania.
“The wind is an issue,” said Dowd. “When it is dry the wind is an issue for two reasons: one, it accelerates everything it is burning and it carries ambers much further away. Those two factors really amplify fire risk.”
Dowd said local fire chiefs are polled when conditions are dry to see if they favor putting a ban in place. The last burn ban, which ran from noon on Oct. 27 through noon on Nov. 26 for a total of 30 days, was favored by nearly 80 percent of the fire chiefs in Lebanon County who responded to a poll to gauge their opinions on implementing a ban.
“The way it works is that when we start to see a significant increase in wild fire incidents or when we get requests from fire chiefs or municipal officials to look into it, we’ll look into it. If weather patterns suggest that it’s a good thing to do, we’ll poll all of the fire chiefs and if a majority respond in favor of the ban, we put the ban in effect,” he added.
Prior to the previous ban, Dowd said several large wild fires across the county prompted the poll. Dowd said Cornwall had several big fires in the area and he noted that “a huge one” in Berks County burned for four or five days before it was finally extinguished.
Dowd told LebTown that county residents should be aware that they are always financially responsible if a fire they light gets out of control.
“An important thing to remember is that the person who burns and causes a fire is responsible for those damages,” said Dowd. “If you burn and cause a fire, the resulting costs are yours to cover. Heaven forbid that it would destroy somebody’s house or worse yet somebody’s life. The liability from that can be huge.”
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