County Commissioners passes a full burn ban
By Paul Hall on Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 in Northeastern Oregon News Northeastern Oregon Top Stories
UNION COUNTY – (Information provided by Union County Emergency Services) At 9:00 am on the morning of July 19th, 2021 the Union County Board of Commissioners held a special meeting to consider a recommendation of entering a burn ban from the Union County Fire Defense Board. Fire Defense Board Chief Craig Kretschmer presented the Fire Defense Board’s recommendation to the Commissioners, who then voted unanimously to enter a county-wide Burn Ban/Regulated Use as provided for in Union County Ordinance 2018-1, effective immediately.
Chief Kretschmer stated that reasons for the recommendation of a burn ban were not only the abnormally dry conditions that have resulted in extreme fire danger, but also declining local Firefighting resource availability. Chief Kretschmer noted that many regional wildland fire resources are committed to active incidents, so any new fire starts will place additional demands on already scarce initial attack resources. Dry, hot, and breezy weather with the potential for lightning is also forecasted for the region this week, prompting a red flag warning to be issued for the area by the National Weather Service.
Under the Burn Ban/Regulated Use provision of Ordinance 2018-1, all fires are banned outside of city limits in Union County with the exception of regulated agricultural field burning and gas or pellet barbecues that meet siting requirements listed in the ordinance. Full text of the county burn ordinance is available at: https://union-county.org/emergency-services/
