More rain needed to make it safe to burn, firefighters warn

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The rain may wash away the hazy sky created by field and grass fires, but it’s not even a splash in the bucket to what is needed to make burning safe, warn firefighters.

“Grass fires are normal, but this year is extremely drier than it usually is,” said Butler County Fire Chief Bob Fredwell. “Extremely dry conditions are definitely heightening the fire danger. We hadn’t had a good rain for three or four weeks so it is extremely, extremely dry.”

Almost the whole state’s in a drought, Fredwell said.

“I know the whole southern part of the state is in the drought condition,” Fredwell said, citing the five or six fires in the Scott City area yesterday. “I mean every county has got the same problem, it’s so dry we’ve had several roadside fires from sparks from a vehicle grating against something, causing the spark. It doesn’t take much. People bush hogging fields or cutting hay and they hit a rock, creating any type of spark; as dry as it is, it is likely to start a fire.”

The Campbell Volunteer Fire Department joined Fredwell recently saying “please be careful when burning right now. Everything is very, very dry.”

The Campbell volunteers responded to two separate out of control field fires recently between Campbell and Malden.

Tuesday, at 4:05 p.m., Butler County firefighters took seven firefighters and five trucks to assist the Ellsinore Fire Department in fighting a woods fire at Highways 60 and B.

During September, Fredwell believes his department had about 30 calls.

“As of this morning, I think we’re on call 35 for this month and we’re only on the 12th day of the month,” he said. “That’s how many fire calls we’ve had in the last couple of weeks.”

The majority of the calls have been field and grass fires.

“The biggest thing I’d like to emphasize is we got a rain today and it definitely did help. But, it’s not going to last but a couple of days. It’s going be right back where we were, so don’t get that false sense of security.”

Stressing the importance not to burn if you can wait a while, Fredwell said, “we’re starting to get more rain. You know the bad thing about it, we got this rain today and it’s going to give a lot of people the confidence it’s rained, you’ll be able to burn. This rain will be gone by tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to dry back out so we’re still urging people not to burn yet. If you hold off for a couple of weeks until we start getting rain for three or four days and get some moisture back in the ground it’d be a lot better.”

If they don’t have to burn, Fredwell said, “we’d appreciate and emphasize if they could hold off for a while and give us a chance for a couple more good rains. Leaves start falling, people are going to start raking leaves and burning their leaves. If they think they have to burn, make sure they’ve got a garden hose close and never leave the fire unoccupied. That’s the biggest problem we have, if they light a fire and leave it unoccupied and it gets out of control, it doesn’t take very long to spread. Stay with it. Usually, they can take care of it but if they have to burn, stay with it.”