Burning will be prohibited in Allen County on Thursday and Friday because of a dry weather system moving through the area.
Low humidity and high winds are expected to create a dangerous fire situation, Jason Trego, emergency management director, told county commissioners. He asked them to declare a two-day fire ban.
The county will face “extreme” fire danger on Thursday and “catastrophic” danger on Friday, Trego reported. The system could bring thunderstorms, particularly late Friday, but the storms are not expected to be very severe, he said.
Recent rains haven’t been enough to offset the fire danger, Trego said.
“A lot more goes into a fire forecast than just the moisture on the ground,” he said. “Unless it’s persistent rain and the vegetation soaks that up, it doesn’t do as much good as people think it does. The two main factors are relative humidity and wind speeds.”
The National Weather Service added the category “catastrophic” in recent years. Trego explained a “very high” fire risk means fires may become difficult to control. “Extreme” fire risk means fires will be very difficult to control. “Catastrophic” means fires will burn out of control.
The catastrophic category is rare for Allen County, he said.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, all of Allen County remains in some sort of drought condition, ranging from extreme in the southwest corner to moderate in the northeast.
AS commissioners discussed the fire ban, Darrell Baughn, fire chief for the Allen County Rural Volunteer Fire Department, asked if they might consider adding “some teeth” to the ban in the form of a penalty.
“No disrespect, but the fire ban is a joke if there’s no fine behind it,” Baughn said.
“Every time we have a fire ban, there’s more fires that day.”
Sheriff Bryan Murphy agreed it’s common to have violations of a fire ban. He estimated only about 30% of controlled burns are reported to dispatchers beforehand.
County counselor Bob Johnson said the county can issue fines or charge violators with a misdemeanor. Many counties have some sort of penalty for violations.
Commissioner Jerry Daniels said Oklahoma requires landowners to pay a fee when a fire gets out of control, thus compensating departments for their time. Other commissioners and Johnson said they were only interested in penalizing those who knowingly violate a fire ban, and not punishing farmers who try to follow the rules but have a fire get out of control.
“There’s a difference between knowingly violating an ordinance and things going bad,” Johnson said.
