Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
‘We’re into a fairly dangerous time right now’
By SUSAN WEICH
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
These days, when O’Fallon, Mo., Fire Marshal Mark Morrison makes his rounds, he’s always got one eye on the horizon, looking for a plume of smoke that might indicate another brush fire. He’s not alone. Dry, windy weather conditions have spawned an explosive number of grass and brush fires in the metro area.
In the first two months of this year, firefighters in St. Charles County battled 86 such fires, compared with just nine for the same period last year. Five more brush fires had broken out by late afternoon Thursday.
In O’Fallon, the first brush fire last year was on March 10, but firefighters have worked more than 20 such blazes already this year -- half the total for all of last year. The fires have prompted Morrison and other local fire officials to suspend all burning in their districts.
“We’re into a fairly dangerous time right now because of the dryness and the lower amount of moisture we’ve gotten in the last couple of months,” said Morrison of the O’Fallon Fire Protection District. “Until we get some more rain, we’re holding up any of the open burning to cut down on that risk factor.”
Other fire districts in the metro area have seen a similar spike, and the southwestern part of the state has counted 100 brush fires already this year. In St. Francois County on Thursday, firefighters were battling another large brush fire.
Firefighters in Texas and Oklahoma have been fighting a series of these types of fires this winter season, too.
In Jefferson County, the De Soto Rural Fire Department has worked 25 brush fires this year, said firefighter Ron Wehlage, compared with about 70 in a typical 12-month period. Much of the problem there has been fires from old timber left over from a severe wind storm that hit the area almost three years ago, he said.
In East St. Louis, Fire Chief William Fennoy said his department had responded to about 20 brush and grass fires in the past two weeks.
In other Illinois cities, the problem appears to be sporadic. In Godfrey, where open burning is allowed year-round, firefighters have responded to eight brush fires in the last week.
Fennoy said open fires are forbidden in East St. Louis. He suspected that four fires Thursday started from smoldering cigarette butts.
The significant increase in these types of fires is due in part to the difference in rainfall between last year and this year. In January 2005, some parts of the metropolitan area got more than 10 inches of rain. This year, the total rainfall through February was only about 2 inches, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service. Total precipitation for December, January and February was 3.3 inches, making it the seventh driest winter season in St. Louis.
The dry spell, combined with low relative humidity and strong wind, has prompted the weather service to issue 15 red flag warnings this year; the distinction means weather conditions are favorable for fire to spread rapidly.
Fire officials say that while the cause of brush and grass fires can be varied and are sometimes impossible to determine, they are often caused by residents who burn brush around their property.
“This is an education issue as far as the public goes,” said state Fire Marshal Randy Cole. “We need to make sure they’re aware of how quickly a small fire can get out of hand.”
Two recent fires in St. Charles County taxed the skills of firefighters, who battled wind gusts of up to 30 mph.
On Feb. 23, about 40 acres of land just west of the Page Avenue Extension bridge ignited, and 11 fire units worked the scene. Fire officials believe that high winds caused a wire near an electrical transformer to arc, igniting the dry grass.
On Monday, about five acres of Darlene Parr’s farm near Wentzville caught fire after an electrical fence shorted out. Parr said she believes a deer knocked it over trying to get to a pond on her property.
The fire burned 90 large bales of hay and a patch of alfalfa. Parr said it could have traveled a lot farther, but the wind directed the fire away from a wooded area.
“We feel really lucky. Nobody got hurt, and no animals got hurt,” she said. “We saved all our buildings, but 15 minutes later, and they all could have been gone. If it would have got started in there, it would have probably jumped from one barn to another.”
All burning permits are issued through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which enforces state regulations on open burning. In the St. Louis area, burning is banned within any city limits. But people who live in an unincorporated area can burn brush from mid-September to mid-April, said Steve Feeler, chief of the enforcement section for the air pollution control program at the Department of Natural Resources.
In Lincoln and Warren counties, residents who live inside city limits must get a burning permit, but those outside a municipality are mostly unregulated for brush, Feeler said. That’s because in many rural areas, there’s no statutory authority to allow a county commission to adopt a local burn ordinance.
In Illinois, local ordinances supersede state Environmental Protection Agency regulations, which prohibit burning in residential areas.
In Missouri, Fire Marshal Cole said that current law does not allow the governor’s office to issue a state-mandated ban on burning. He said he has helped to draft a piece of legislation that would give the governor the authority to stop burning under certain conditions and said he is seeking a sponsor for the legislation.
In the meantime, local officials have some say over burning because permits require a call to fire officials daily before igniting a fire.
“If anybody calls us and asks, they’ll be told no at this time,” said Scott Freitag, assistant chief of the Cottleville Fire Protection District in St. Charles County. “But we still have people who burn things and don’t tell anybody until it’s out of control. That’s when we run into problems.”
Robert Kelly and Paul Hampel of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.