Travis County Commssioners Court
December 9, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Items A1 & A2
A 1. Is to receive briefing and take appropriate regarding the prohibition of the sale for use of restricted fireworks in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. Should I pull up a 2 separately or --
>> we can handle them together or separately. On a2. Receive briefing and take appropriate action regarding the prohibition of outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. Based on the backup, it's really the same briefings, just two separate actions.
>> yes. Good morning my name is pete baldwin, the Travis County emergency management coordinator. At the table with us today is danny [indiscernible] emergency services coordinator, brad beachham assistant fire marshal. One item is the outdoor burning ban for unincorporated areas of Travis County. Winter has a time of sneaking up on us. It gets dry, it's cold but we forget that the fuels out there are still very dangerous and start drying out. We were doing fairly well, even though we are in a rainfall deficit of almost 10 inches. Until after that first freeze that we had, then we had a subsequent freeze right in behind it which knocked down all of those grasses and really dried things out. Northern winds dry. We saw -- a dramatic increase in the number of fire that's our fire departments were running. Things that were a little bit unusual such as hay bailers starting fires. Those are good indicator that your fine fuels are dry and the fact is that went for 50 to 75 acres, it indicates it's very difficult to control because the larger fuels are dried out. Bottom line is we are coming back in at this date requesting the court approve a burning ban for outdoor burning ban for the unincorporated areas of Travis County. We put it on like we normally do for 30 days. Put it on a weekly basis in the event that we get some significant rain any questions on the outdoor burning ban.
>> when we do a ban, does that literally mean that you have no opportunity to contact anybody to say this is what I'm going to do or is it like don't even ask, nothing can be burned, nothing can be dealt with. There's not a mechanism, in other words, if we put this in --
>> as soon as we put the --
>> as soon as we put these in place, several things happen. We try to get word out first of all we fax a press release to all media. And also page most of . They now. We also -- most of them now. Also fax out to all of the esd's and fire departments out there, plus we post it on our website. Normally in the first week it's to go out and say did you not know that there was a burn ban in place, we need to put this out because of dry weather. However if we continue into it to three or four weeks, we feel like people have had plenty of opportunity to understand the dry conditions because this is based on a public safety issue.
>> so there is no -- there really is no mechanism, if the bannings into -- if the ban goes into being, that can come to you all and say I do have this, but if you will come out and inspect this I think that you will see there's no way that -- kind of like across the board up incorporated areas don't ask, that's the deal.
>> okay.
>> brad brought up a good point. The order itself says that any activity that would create sparks or flames that are not contained in a caner designed to keep those sparks and flame in it. As I have said many times before, I refuse to be the first person to try to ban barbecue in Texas. Barbecue pits are absolutely legal.
>> it's the open burning that is prohibited.
>> it's primarily where we get into problems with this, where people are clearing land, they are piling up brush and burning it or they are burning trash without any kind of screen cover or any kind of enclosure. It gets away from them. Such as take a day, for example -- a good example, we had a little bit of rain this morning, fuel moisture went up a little bit. But the wind is fixing to turn out of the west. A very dry west wind, be gusting 30, 40 miles per hour to date. Very bad scenario for fires. This would be a tremendously bad day to be out burning anything.
>> but in addition to rain, we also factor in other -- other weather conditions and --
>> yes, sir.
>> we factor in the drought index calculated by the Texas forest service, also by a couple of our own weather stations. That benchmark is 500. The scale itself runs from zero to 800. Anything over 500 then by the -- as determined by the Texas forest service says the Commissioners court may institute an outdoor burning ban or may consider that a drought and ban the use of aerial fireworks.
>> there's no question that the -- that the circumstances now are -- are -- well, tell us that is a dangerous situation for outdoor burning.
>> yes, sir.
>> so the ban is appropriate.
>> yes, sir.
>> and we would carry this on the court's agenda weekly so if the situation changes we would be able to act.
>> we would be able to pull it, yes, sir.
>> that's why I move approval of number 2, a 2.
>> second.
>> which is the prohibition of outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. Seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion?
>> yes, judge. I would like to add if there's a person that needs to find out more about this, as far as when they can do or what they can't do, things like that as far as the outdoor burning, is there a number someone can contact?
>> yes, sir. They can contact the Travis County fire marshal's office. Or they can contact their local fire department because they will have copies of all of this.
>> okay.
>> okay. Thanks.
>> a 1 pertains to the sale or use of restricted fireworks.
>> judge --
>> I'm sorry.
>> vote on this one, judge.
>> getting ahead of myself a little bit. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> all right. A 1. The action part.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> we have put in an outdoor burning ban, and yet we're coming up on the sale of fireworks. The reason the specifically named stick rockets and missiles with fins is because those are the type of items that leave any human control whatsoever once they are set off. So with that in place, that order has to be put in by the Commissioners court by December 15th in order to apply -- when do the fireworks go on sale? The 20th? They actually are allowed to go on sale December 20th. So by the 15th we have to pass an order. With us doing an outdoor burning ban, it follows that if it's that dry that we don't want people burning brush piles or trash, we certainly don't want fireworks being shot off in pastures that are very, very dry also.
>> do we contact the persons, companies that we know are in the business of selling these kinds of fireworks?
>> yes, sir. Fire marshal dennis hoff sent an e-mail to the fireworks association. In fact, the fire marshal's office has been meeting with the fireworks people to try to straighten out some issues and have a very good contact and very good working relationship with them. An e-mail went out to all of those saying that the court was going to be considering putting this in this morning. So they are aware of it.
>> are we able to rescind this week to week, consider rescinding it week to week based on conditions.
>> based on conditions if we get a determination by the court that drought is no longer in effect, this can be rescinded.
>> anybody here on this item who would like to give comments at this time? These are special items because they lose the control of the user and fly in the air and who knows where they land, but --
>> yes, sir. And that's the only two that are impacted by the law that is passed that we're able to access.
>> all the others are just for sale as usual?
>> yes.
>> so a fire stand, firecracker stand as we call them, do we go and inspect what they are selling or do we just -- or do we just expect them to comply with putting those in the back room? And who's to say that if you live in fredricksburg and you're coming in for christmas shopping and on the way out of town you want to stop on 290 and buy a roman candle or whatever, how do we do this?
>> Commissioner, that was exceptionally well said. We do inspect the stands, the county fire marshal's office, along with the emergency service district. Caldwell county, hays county has looked at this. We will see this happening in probably many of the counties in the area this morning, but your question is very valid and your assumption is correct: if you're in another county that doesn't restrict them and you purchase them there and bring them to travis, we have little control over that.
>> how about if you want to buy one? They wouldn't be able to buy one because you will go by the 290 operations and say hey, you need to have your candles to be gone.
>> yes, sir, in travis we will go out and inspect the stands anyway. As part that have inspection we will remind them that they are restricted. The industry is very good. They will pull them. As pete says, this only affects a couple of aerial devices that are the most causative of fires.
>> but I guess that -- I guess I'm having some problem with it, I guess. I mean, I know we do everything that we do to try to prevent it, and I don't know if other counties are going to cooperate and do not have the restrictions that we are placing, but you still see it in the city limits and stuff like that, you see those things racing across the sky at night.
>> Commissioner Davis --
>> it's still happening. They're coming in to Travis County.
>> the interesting part about it, though, is if you look at the state of Texas right now, there is a section along the i-35 corridor from hays up through Williamson and a few adjoining counties to us that did not receive the rains as some of the rest of the counties did out to our west and to our southeast. Those counties are not -- won't be looking at implementing outdoor burning bans or restricting fireworks because they have enough moisture in their counties.
>> if you actually go to the website and look at that map, there's like a three to four counties that's in yellow moving toward red, and we're one of them. It was just one of those phenomenas when the rain came, we didn't get the significant rains that the rest of the counties did.
>> Commissioner Davis, may I also speak to that, please?
>> yes, please.
>> also just to clarify this, there are certain aerial devices, specifically what's called a mortar, where the base stand stays on the ground, which is a very popular item that's sold. Those statutorily cannot be banned under this statute. We're talking about some very specific things. And when you see those devices going up in the air, a reasonable, prudent person would say that's an aerial device, but as defined by this statute, since it originates in that mortar tube on the ground, it is not an aerial device, even though it goes up in the air as is probably one of the more popular devices. So we will see them anyway.
>> okay. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. Thank you.
>> move approval of a-1 to prohibit the sale or use of restricted fireworks and generally categorized as sky rockets and missiles with fins. Thank the industry for their cooperation in the past and request their cooperation this year. We'll have this item on the agenda week to week in case we need to take action and pray for rain otherwise.
>> absolutely. I did want to mention real quickly, if you did have any other additional questions, I notice we have chief balm with a.f.d. Out in -- he's very good on wild land fire scenario too. So if you've got any questions on that, I'm sure he will support it.
>> thank you.
>> we're 10 inches below normal?
>> yes, 10-inch deficit.
>> so we need rain not only for fireworks, but for many other reasons. Was that seconded?
>> yes.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 10, 2003 6:44 AM