Commission approves annual burn ban

EPHRATA — With the smoke from a half a dozen fires hanging heavy over the Columbia Basin, the Grant County Commission unanimously approved an annual countywide summer burn ban on Tuesday.

The ban, which goes into effect immediately, will restrict burning in Grant County from June 1 through Sept. 30, and automatically come into effect every year.

Currently, county commissioners impose a burn ban as needed. The current countywide burn ban was enacted on June 28.

“In the 21 years I’ve been here, we’ve had burn bans in 20 of them,” Grant Count Fire Marshal Dave Nelson told commissioners on Tuesday. “It seems prudent to have an automatic burn ban.”

The new measure primarily limits the burning of yard waste and scrubland, Nelson said. Agricultural burning — particularly fields and orchards — is covered by state law, and not subject to county restrictions.

“We don’t get to regulate silviculture burning,” Nelson said.

Grant County fire chiefs gathered to support the measure, and urged the commissioners to lengthen the ban from the originally proposed June 15 through Aug 31.

“It seems like fire season is later and later,” said Dan Smith, chief of Grant County Fire District No. 5, which surrounds Moses Lake. “It’s not unusual to have equipment out even into early October.”

“We live in a very volatile area,” said Don Fortier, chief of the Grand County Fire District No. 3, which covers a portion of the west side of the county from Quincy south past George. “It only takes one hour of wind and heat to dry out the brush and make it burnable after a rain.”

“We don’t want to get in the way of farmers, and we will work with them,” Fortier continued. “But farmers are not the problem. Backyard stuff done recklessly is.”

Fortier, like the other fire chiefs, pushed for the June 1 through Sept. 30 burn ban to put Grant County in line with neighboring counties like Douglas and Chelan.

The chiefs pushed for the ban to start earlier and end later because fire season starts earlier — the first major burst of fire in Grant County this year was in late May — and lasts later.

They also acknowledged that the new restrictions will also require educating people about when they can and cannot burn.

“Some people will say, ‘We used to be able to do this,’ and we’ll need to remind them, you haven’t always been able to burn. You just haven’t been caught,” said Kirk Sheppard, chief of Grant County Fire District No. 7 in Soap Lake.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.