County Commission imposes burn ban

BROOKINGS — The Brookings County Commissioners put in place a temporary burn ban for the county at their meeting Tuesday morning.

Despite some rain and snow last week, the county remains dry and a steady parade of grass and structure fires — often reignited by high winds — led the commission to pause burning for the foreseeable future.

The burn ban passed on a 4-1 vote at the April 7 meeting after some discussion. Commissioners Shawn Hostler, Kelly VanderWal, Dave Miller and Larry Jensen voted in favor of the ban, with Commissioner Doug Post voting against.

Brookings Fire Chief Troy Hughes and Brookings County Sheriff Marty Stanwick also spoke in favor of the ban.

A burn ban bars all open burning in Brookings County without written permission from a local fire chief or department. It does not ban use of burn barrels or fire pits, with a notable caveat — any fire getting started by such containers shall be considered prima facie evidence the container was insufficient to qualify for exemption.

The ban is authorized by Brookings County ordinance 24-04.

According to the statute: "Open burning" shall be defined as any outdoor fire, including but not limited to the prescribed burning of fence rows, fields, wildlands, trash, and debris, the intentional burning of any substance, whether natural or manmade, or the intentional casting off of any burning substance, whether natural or manmade, except the burning of such substance in a container sufficient so as to prohibit the escape of any of the burning substance, or any sparks, flames, or hot ashes from the container. The escape of any such burning substance or the escape of any sparks, flames, or hot ashes from any such container shall be deemed prima facie evidence that the container was insufficient so as to meet the exception from the definition of an open burning set forth herein. This also excludes fires contained within liquid-fueled or gas-fueled stoves, fireplaces within all buildings, charcoal grill fires at private residences, and permanent fire pits or fire grates located on supervised developed picnic grounds and campgrounds.

Area fire crews responded to at least three fires last week.

On April 1, crews responded to a residence in southern Brookings county where a burn barrel that had been used 4-5 days prior had tipped over in the wind and reignited, causing a grass fire.

The homeowner and the Brookings Fire Department were able to contain the blaze, and no injuries were reported.

In the early morning hours of April 2, crews responded to a fire in a barn in Aurora.

All six Brookings County fire departments ended up responding, and it took three hours to extinguish the blaze. The cause of that fire is still undetermined and no injuries were reported.

Again in the early morning hours of April 3, all county departments responded to a fully involved structure fire at a house in Volga.

The cause of that blaze is still under investigation and no injuries were reported, but crews were on scene for more than four hours putting out the fire.

Fire Chief Troy Huges told the Beacon last week he thought a burn ban was going to be appropriate.

"We had one on the interstate last week, and the fire behavior was very, very extreme. I would think that the County Commission will probably recommend a burn ban in the very near future — unless we get some significant rain in the next couple of weeks we're, extremely dry," Hughes said last week.

"We don't have to look far, look to Nebraska, and see what they're facing. And we're really in similar conditions up here as far as moisture and weather and dry grass. We just have not had the right spark and the right wind on the right day. But we're very vulnerable to it."

Three separate wildfires have engulfed the state of Nebraska over the past few weeks, burning more than 700,000 acres of land and causing issues with smoke across nearly the entire state.

The Governor of Nebraska declared a state of emergency with regard to agricultural products — meaning specifically hay for feeding livestock — and farmers and ranchers from across the Midwest, including South Dakota, have sent trucks loaded with round bales south to try to help.

Linehan is the Beacon's managing editor and welcomes tips and comments at BrookingsBeacon@gmail.com