Due to recent vegetation fires over the past few weeks and the beginning of dry season, an open burn ban has officially been implemented across Johnson County. The county is one piece in a state-wide trend of increasingly numerous burn bans.
Open burning is defined as the uncontrolled outdoor burning of materials like yard waste and debris.
On Oct. 4, the Office of the State Fire Marshal received a request from Brian Platz, the fire chief of North Liberty and representative of fire departments in Johnson County, to prohibit open burning due to dry conditions.
The Fire Marshal concluded that "open burning constitutes a danger to life or property." As a result, it is ordered that "no person shall engage in open burning in Johnson County, effective Oct. 4 at 5 p.m."
This prohibition will remain in effect until Platz notifies the State Fire Marshal that the hazardous conditions have been resolved. Additionally, it is noted that "any violation of this proclamation order is a simple misdemeanor."
State Fire Marshal Dan Wood explained that local agencies, including fire departments, police, sheriff's offices, and emergency managers, collaborate within each county to determine whether to implement a burn ban.
Once a decision is made, they submit a request to the State Fire Marshal's office, which then announces the ban and posts it on the official website. The responsibility for initiating a burn ban rests with local authorities.
In this instance, Platz brought the request representing the fire departments of Johnson County as the head of the Johnson County Mutual Aid Association, a group of local emergency services that work together to support each other.
Wood reflected on the cyclical nature of burn bans in Iowa.
"Honestly, every year crops dry out so they can be harvested," he said. "We tend to have a lot of burn bans in the fall, and then in the spring, when the snowfall melts off. You still get basically the same conditions from the fall, so we tend to have a lot in the spring, too."
Wood also considered the bans from a state-wide angle, stating that numbers were up.
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"I don't remember when we've had this many burn bans. We're up to 56 now. Fifty-six counties in the state have burn bans," he said. "I don't remember it ever being that high in my time in the fire marshal's office."
Wood provided tips for navigating the ban.
"The biggest recommendations that we always give is, for the farmers, trying to
keep the tractors and the combines clean and keep the debris off of them as much as they can," he said. "For other folks discarding their smoking materials, be careful doing that this time of year."
Wood also added that the office would appreciate a collaborative effort with residents, in which residents are "looking out for smoke and fire and on reporting that when they see it."
Those who do break the open-burn ban will receive a simple misdemeanor. Johnson County Sheriff Brad Kunkel said they have not had to issue citations for burn bans yet, but the Sheriff's Office would be the agency responsible for issuing the tickets in Johnson County.
"We haven't had to take any action on it yet," he said. "We'd be the entity that writes a citation if somebody violated it."
Kunkel described the steps residents can take to report unauthorized open burns.
"Report to the [Joint Emergency Communication Center], and they'll dispatch the appropriate agency or dispatch a fire department if they need to come investigate it, and then we can respond to it if necessary," he said.