Travis County Commissioners Court
March 14, 2006
Item 1
Item number 1, consider and take appropriate action regarding the prohibition of outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County and related matters. Morning.
>> morning, judge, pete baldwin, emergency management coordinator. There has been no change this week. We recommend no action be taken on the outdoor burning ban and be left in place. We do have a possibility of some rain this weekend. We'll need to review it next Tuesday, but I think the events of the past weekend with fires in the panhandle and what we have seen indicate just exactly how bad it is. To give you an example of after the cold front passed through yesterday, the relative humidity dropped to 14% and we were exceeding gusts of 14 miles per hour. So today is much better, our humidity levels will be up, but it is not time to left it yet.
>> this year has been unusually hazardous for us, hasn't it?
>> yes, sir, it's been extreme fire danger. This year the rains did not fall in the winter.
>> so by taking no action we leave in place the order prohibiting outdoor open burning.
>> yes, sir.
>> so if it's enclosed, it's all right. If it's open, don't do it, and if you read the newspaper, you see why conditions are favorable for fires.
>> and I might add also, yesterday's fire in hays county was started by a vehicle travelling down the road. So even though we've got some green up, you start to see a little bit of green in our grasses, it is not still not to stop the spread of fires. So that's why our recommendation is no action.
>> and that comes from our fire marshal and our emergency services director, so we went to the top at Travis County for the recommendation. Thank y'all very much.
>> do we know if Williamson county is going to extend -- they lifted it at one time, but I don't know if they're going to reinstate it. They're just adjacent to us.
>> I’m not aware of Williamson county at this time. I can find that information out for you very quickly, but I do know that there are a number of other counties around us that lifted theirs temporarily that have reinstated them immediately, bastrop one caldwell county one.
>> the thing is about that fire and fires don't have a respect for county lines. They just go right across into the next county. So there's no respect there. So I’m just concerned about the surrounding counties and have they all reinstated the fire ban.
>> I’ll have the map delivered to everyone's office this afternoon of the current counties that have outdoor burning bans.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> we'll have it on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 15, 2006 10:38 AM