Travis County Commissioners Court
January 3, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 2
Number 2, consider and take appropriate action on an order concerning outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners court herschel lee, Travis County fire marshal.
the drought index is 258.
it's beginning to rise because of the some of the drying of the smaller fuels and the top eight inches of the soil.
my recommendation this morning is to take no action to allow people to continue to burn for a while, but with a reminder to the public and those that are listening that this will come to an end and probably pretty quickly with the freeze we had last night.
that the small fuels are going to dry and cure and that as the relative humidity drops, we're going to be approaching a time when we'll no longer be able to safely burn out of doors.
and I know some of you are curious over the weekend how did we do, and there were -- that I know of specifically three fires that were started and blamed on celebrations that were going on.
but the fires were relatively small and some of theme extinguished by the people who actually started the fire before a fire truck could arrive.
and that's due to the fact that the fuels did have moisture in them and the fires were not able to spread very quickly.
and also greatly due to the fact the norther didn't blow in until 1:00 a.m.
and most of the celebrating was already over.
so there were a number of fires that have been reported, but the fire chiefs are saying that they are controllable.
for the most part the fires that got out were large bonfires, people celebrating, or they didn't get their fire completely extinguished before they left that fire unattended and fire marshals were out checking on those.
my recommendation today is take no action at this time, to allow people to burn for a while longer.
>> herschel, there was a house fire across the street.
do we know whether or not that was attributed to fireworks yet?
>> the county fire marshal's office was not notified of that fire so we have not been there to investigate that fire.
I suppose that the fire department is working on that, but we have not been -- other than the information that I saw on the news, I do not have any information about that particular fire.
>> I've had several emails on that and I think that one of the things that we need to remind people with this agenda item today is I know out in my area especially, visual fireworks seem to continue to go off throughout January.
and one of the problems that we have was with the way our -- we're structured legally on being able to ban or not ban fireworks.
I mean lost creek, parts of lost creek is in the county, but it's in the urban area of Austin.
and the neighborhood there I know felt like there were excessive fireworks going on
>> [inaudible].
wanted the county to have done something about that in prohibiting fireworks, but we legally didn't meet the requirements to do so.
so I just want to say continue to use caution, those who live in -- everywhere, but especially in the unincorporated areas and in urban environments with these fireworks.
and secondly, show up to the legislature so we can deal with this problem of fireworks in urban areas.
>> yes, and if you do have a need to burn, if you are working on defensible space or something to make your home and property safer, be sure and call the local fire department, notify them before you start burning.
and any fire that you start has to be manageable by you with equipment you have on site.
if a fire marshal shows up and we really don't -- we should not have to call the fire truck to put it out.
the fire is supposed to be manageable by the person who started the fire.
they should be able to put that fire out and control it.
if you have a question, you don't know who to call, call my office 854-4621, and we can tell you which local fire department you would need to call before you start burning.
>> move that we follow staff's recommendation and take no action.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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