Travis County Commissioners Court
January 10, 2006
Item 1
Number 1 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding the prohibition of outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. This is the one that's been riding the agenda now for seven or eight weeks. Because our conditions have not only not improved, they may well have gotten worse.
>> yes, sir. Pete baldwin, Travis County emergency management coordinator. And as you said, our conditions have not improved, they continually get worse this past weekend. You have seen a great number of fires that have started throughout central Texas. We are starting to see more fire starts moving south, it was in the metro plex area where we were having so much problems, now we are starting to see a lot of that move into central Texas. As of yesterday afternoon, there were 57 counties, up 10 from last week, that had disaster declarations in place throughout and the number of burn bans and -- and fireworks restrictions remained about the same. Still blankets the state.
>> so in number one, we have an order in place, so by taking no action the order remains in place.
>> actually, you have a new order because counter order expires tomorrow, so you should have two copies of a new order, which extends it for another 30 days.
>> okay. And the reason for that is that situation has not improved. And it is still dangerous to -- to have open fires. Outdoors.
>> any type of open fires, any type of heat, elements that are out there, we have seen fires now started by exhaust mufflers from -- from lawn mowers. We are starting to see some strange behavior. So the bottom line is we definitely recommend the state of Texas of the outdoor burning ban.
>> I have gotten questions about barbecues more than anything else. If you have the typical barbecue grill that you can cover after you turn your meat over, it's all right. But even if you use it, you should not have that setting on grass, right? It really should sit on something that won't burn.
>> the outdoor burning ban order specifically states no sparks or flames outside of a device designed to contain all sparks and flames. Meaning if you have a grill that has a lid on it, that's all right. We would ask people to use pretty common sense, though. When they do use those, don't use them on grass. Make sure that you have got a water source handy. You know, use common sense when you are grilling, no open grills, we've had some discussions with our parks folks about not allowing the use of the freestanding open grills, so -- our outdoor burning ban says specific device designed to contain sparks and flames.
>> and join us in praying for rain.
>> absolutely.
>> move that we extend the burn ban, outdoor burning baseball for another 30 day -- burning ban for another 30 days and that we post this matter weekly to give us a chance to review it. Any discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:25 AM