Fire departments throughout Grenada County are all too familiar with fighting grass and woods fires.
It’s an art they’ve nearly perfected the past few months, but one they don’t desire to perform on a daily basis.
As of late, grass and woods fires are breaking out on a seemingly endless rate across the county and state. For that reason, Grenada County Emergency Management Agency Director Trebia Rogers met with the Board of Supervisors and requested that they issue a burn ban throughout the county, which they voted on and approved unanimously for the next two weeks. The ban was necessary and hopefully it will slow the fire tones on career and volunteer firefighter’s pagers from ringing out so often.
Last week, we received a small amount of rain. However, that does not mean you can start burning brush, lighting your garbage on fire or executing control burns. Despite the afternoon showers that gave us some precipitation last week, officials say it’s going to take several weeks’ worth of rain to saturate the ground good enough to lift the county’s no burn ban, which will continue at least two weeks or “until significant rain” is received.
For some reason, many residents either do not listen to the warnings or simply do not care. However, if you burn, fines can be up to $500 or exceed that amount and will be issued to anyone burning under the ban. So, you may want to rethink lighting that fire.
Personally, I have witnessed several citizens burning brush especially out in the county. Most recently, I was heading back from Greenwood and witnessed a resident with a large fire of limbs and brush burning.
There have been a few grass fires and house fires that fire departments across the county have battled in the 100-degree heat. So think before you burn. You could cause damage to property or more tragically kill someone.
As for the firefighters and other first responders, thank you for your service, keep cool and stay safe.
Adam Prestridge is publisher of The Grenada Star. He can be reached at (662) 226-4321 or by email at aprestridge@grenadastar.com
