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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on January 3, 2010 at 10:08pm

Thanks everyone. Keep the comments burning....................

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on January 4, 2010 at 2:11am

Chief Sharp, This whole thing is a Pandora's Box... I started reading the many posts that have a lot of different ways of handing burn permitting. Let me make this simple with a couple of justifications thrown in. If you are in a position to say whether or not to support allowing permitted burns then you really need to think seriously about supporting this. Once you give a green light for folks to burn, you really can't go backwards.

My strong advise Chief is to NOT allow any form of burning by citizens, regardless of whether it's winter or not. Your resources are no better than most other departments across the country. While this is a tremendous convenience for the general public, it is a complete boondoggle as far as the fire department is concerned.

Non-compliance issues, people burning on no burns days, having to deal with your air pollution control district folks and the resulting air quality issues, fires that get bigger than they are suppose to, property damage and even sometimes causing folks getting hurt due to ignorance or the facts that things just happen...

If you have the chance to shut this movement down before it gets any momentum do so. Revenue for non-reimbursed firefighting ops, sometimes forcing the use of $100.00 for a 5-gallon container of foam and several at that make your budget take a hit not to mention manpower costs. I think it's fiscally irresponsible to support anything that could be an impact on either the community or your department.

When you look at the state of Oregon for example, you have to classify exactly what type of burning you are talking about...

The state of Oregon classifies all open burning into one of seven classes:

1. Agricultural
2. Commercial
3. Construction
4. Demolition (which includes land clearing)
5. Domestic (which includes burning commonly called "backyard burning" and burning of yard debris)
6. Industrial; or Slash.

Do you have the administrative staff and resources to adequately deal with enforcement and permit issuance?

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it...

As always, TCSS, CBz

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Permalink Reply by Todd on January 4, 2010 at 2:18am

In South Carolina you are required to notify the SC Forestry Commission via their 1-800 line prior to doing any burning in unincorporated areas of the state.

In Lexington County we have a fairly strict burn ordinance, primarily because for several years we led the state in the number of fires as a result of outdoor burning.

We require the following:

75 feet from any property line.
75 feet from any type of structure, including sheds.
Continuously attended by a competent person with a water hose or other fire extinguishing equipment until the fire is extinguished.
Must be leaves, limbs, or clippings from that property only
Smoke production must end and no additional fuel can be added between official sunset and official sunrise the next day.

Typically when we go out to a burn complaint we check the CAD history to see if there were any previous responses to that location. If there aren't we hand them a printed out pamphlet concerning the outdoor burn ordinance and have them extinguish the fire. If there are previous responses for burn complaints we turn it over to one of our code enforcement officers who can and often does hands them a hefty ticket.

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