Northwest Iowa — While we started the summer with flooding, we’ve had so little rain recently that fire officials are now concerned about wildfires.
Sioux County is the latest to join the burning ban club. On Monday, Lyon and Osceola county officials announced a burning ban in their counties. Of the four northwest Iowa counties, only O’Brien County does not yet have a burning ban.
There are several exceptions to the burning ban. If you can obtain a permit from your fire chief, then burning is permitted as laid out in that permit. Also, the use of outdoor fireplaces, barbecue grills, properly-supervised landfills, or the burning of trash in incinerators or trash burners made of metal, concrete, masonry, or heavy one-inch wire mesh, with no openings greater than one square inch — is also still permitted.
On the other hand, fire chiefs are suggesting limiting even allowed fire activities. They also suggest extreme caution with smoking materials and even anything that could get hot.
If you have any questions, you can call your fire chief or the county sheriff’s office.
Officials are also encouraging farmers who are harvesting to have a tractor with a disk nearby in case of fire. If a fire does break out, a firebreak can be disked around the fire to stop it before it burns anything else.
