Travis County Commissioners Court

July 10, 2012 - Item 6
Agenda

Number 6 is to consider and take appropriate action on an order concerning outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County.

>> Yesterday I sent a note saying I think we need to hold the burn ban and I'm still of that opinion because there are some parts of western Travis County that have yet to record more than .3 of rain.
The forecast says they are going to get that in the next two days, but those are the areas that are most vulnerable to wildfires.
Until we get that rain in western Travis County and we see some effect from a slow soaking rain over there, my recommendation is to leave the Travis County burn ban in place.
With the legislation that was approved year before last, if we need to lift the burn ban prior to next voting session, we do have the ability to do that.

>> So what's the drought index today?

>> Well, they update that every morning about 10:00 a.m.
Yesterday it was 571, which was up about 40 points from the week before.

>> That's pretty high.

>> That's -- that's pretty high.
The eastern side of our county this morning is probably going to get three and a half, four inches of rain just today, but that's not helping the areas out around spicewood and the areas more vulnerable to wildfire.

>> Which got no rain yesterday when everybody else did.

>> A huge rain came through and got central Austin and some of the areas to the east, which was very beneficial, but it didn't help the area that has the heavy juniper and things like that.

>> Herschel, the kbdi is countywide.
Under statute the fire marshal has the bye ate to look at all the -- has the ability to look at all the circumstances.

>> When the county judge or fire marshal feels that the county is safe enough that a burn ban is no longer required, it could be lifted without waiting for a voting session of Commissioners court.

>> How would we advertise that the burn ban had been lifted for those who are waiting to -- some folks have cleared brush and are waiting for an opportunity to burn it so that it doesn't burn from lightning strike, line whip or thrown cigarette butt.

>> Well, we have a list of all the news media outlets and we always -- when we take an action such as putting a burn ban in place or lift one, we send a press release to all those people.
In addition now we have the ability to use social media, facebook and twitter to also help get that word out.

>> And it's also posted on our website?

>> It will be post odd the county's main website as well as the county fire marshal's.

>> Thank you.

>> So by taking no action today, we simply leave in place the burn ban we approved a couple weeks ago.

>> That's correct.

>> Court members, questions, comments?
Thank you very much.
We'll have it back on next week.

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.

July 3, 2012: Travis County Launches New Video Playback System

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On July 3rd, 2012, Travis County began leveraging free resources by posting Commissioners Court meetings on Youtube. Previously every video clip was edited separately and hosted on the county's video server. The old system also required RealPlayer to view the video clips.

The new systems save time and resources -- and that saves taxpayer dollars!