Northwest Iowa — The spring weather has more people outside, taking care of outdoor tasks, especially during this time of social distancing — it’s a way of getting out of the house. But if your plans involve burning, fire officials have a couple of requests.
Sioux Center Fire Chief David Van Holland says with this COVID-19 situation, he’d rather not get firefighters together in close proximity to go out on a fire call if it’s not for a fire that they have to extinguish.
(as said:) “We love that people are cleaning up and burning ditches and burning stuff and burning this and that and we have no problem at all. Prior to this situation we’re in now, we would never even be mentioning this, but we want our guys in the trucks as [little] as possible sitting two feet away from each other and it’s to our best interest for you folks that do want to do burning of ditches [or] burning of whatever it might be to just call the Comm Center and you can talk to the dispatcher there and then he will know that it’s a controlled burn.”
The numbers to call in our four-county area are the sheriff’s office numbers. In Sioux County, you can call 712-737-3307. In O’Brien County, you can call 712-957-3415. The number to call in Osceola County is 712-754-2556. And in Lyon County, it’s 712-472-8300.
He says if people call in, dispatch can check their list of people who have called in to say they’re going to be burning, and can easily tell that the fire department doesn’t need to be called.
(as said:) “We have fantastic constituents that ride through the country and when they see something burning they call the local fire department. And that’s great. But at this point in time, we don’t need fire departments responding to something that’s not necessary for us to be in the truck sitting side by side.”
Van Holland tells us that people should also be very careful with fire. He says don’t burn if it’s windy. He also has another tip for us.
(as said:) “Just be very very cautious of anything that you are going to burn, that you don’t try to light it with any flammable liquids. By all means, we don’t need people in the burn center either. We don’t care if people burn but you just need to be cautious on it.”
Van Holland says that in-town burning varies by city, but there are restrictions on in-town burning in almost every town. Call your city office for more information.
Speaking of burning, the Granville and Paullina fire departments got called out on Tuesday, about ten minutes to 2 p.m. for a brush fire that had gone out of control. Paullina Fire Chief Brent Nooteboom says the damage was limited to grass, and firefighters fought the fire for about two hours.
