Travis County Commissioners Court
July 5, 2005
Item 21
Number 21 is consider and take appropriate action regarding the prohibition of outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County.
>> good morning, pete baldwin, Travis County emergency management coordinator. Not any changes from last week. We had hoped a couple of these tropical depressions that were moving through might give us a shot at some rain, but everything is moving to the east on us. Long-range forecasts continue to call for hot and dry weather. We're starting to see pretty significant fires pop in some of the surrounding counties. I know yesterday starflight assisted on a fairly large fire up in burnett county. But there's just not been any change and right now we don't see tpheugs out there in the near future that would cause us to recommend anything but a continuation. Yes, sir.
>> I heard on the radio the other day [inaudible] from folks that had to respond to a lot of mishaps. Are those in the county proper or is it part of the overall county?
>> I don't know, sir, without knowing where exactly what they were talking to. I know there were a number of responses within the city because they would get call for fireworks being shot in the city. As far as I know we had very little activity over the weekend due to major grass fires. So we are fairly fortunate. I honestly believe that when it gets this hot and dry people start using common sense and say it's too hot to be outside much less too hot to try to be burning anything.
>> I didn't know if they were all related to -- I didn't know if maybe they were related to the fireworks or just burning. I really didn't know.
>> without knowing the source, I couldn't tell you. I would imagine it was a combination of everything. I do know that there was fire out in pace bend park of unknown origin. Not sure exactly what started that. It's just extremely hot and dry and we need to continue to use our residents to use precaution and hope we get some kind of relief from this high-pressure system.
>> pete, will you again mention that number to folks out there in the community that need to know that there is a fire ban in place, and if the court decides to continue to extend this, the numbers you had given out last week.
>> yes, sir. That number is 854-6421. That's the number they can call and check on that at any point in time.
>> thank you.
>> so by taking action today, we pretty much leave in place the burn ban that we approved last week.
>> yes, sir. In fact --
>> this will be on the agenda every week in the event we get some rain, and it would be, I guess, unexpected this time.
>> yes, sir.
>> but the conditions really are not only the same, but they've gotten worse, haven't they?
>> yes, sir, they've continued dry. What we're seeing when they start seeing these 100-degree days, what that tells us is that the soil moisture, the moisture in the soil which helps keep temperatures down, it's now started to dry out and evaporate. What we've got is extremely dry conditions and that's also causing a lot of these 100-degree days that we're seeing too. So by no action and the ban is still in effect until July whatever -- I’m sorry, whenever we had it on for the end of it.
>> roughly 30 days.
>> yes, sir.
>> so if residents need to burn outside, they need to burn in a a covered container of some sort.
>> a container that is designed to contain all sparks and flames is the way the order reads.
>> otherwise they should not burn outside in unincorporated areas.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay. Thank you very much. We'll have this back on next week.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 5, 2005 7:59 PM