Hardin County Judge Wayne McDaniel address Fire Dangers

🚨 FIRE DANGER INCREASES

As drought conditions continue to worsen, the threat for dangerous wildfires increases daily. The lower humidity feels nice, but that’s a recipe for disaster when lighting a brush pile. Please don’t do it‼️

A small fire in an enclosed burn pit or burn barrel located a minimum of 20 feet from any vegetation or other fuels might be okay as long as winds are calm. Otherwise, now is not the time to burn leaves, limbs, trees, etc. and it’s absolutely not time plan a “controlled burn” on acreage. Your firefighters have responded to multiple calls to extinguish these types of fires that have gotten out of control over the past few days.

If you do burn a small fire in an enclosed pit, barrel, or BBQ, never leave it unattended. Keep a water hose capable of extinguishing all flames ready nearby and be sure all flames and coals are out before you go indoors.

Most of your firefighters are volunteers, and we are very thankful for them. When you burn carelessly and they are called out, you put lives and property in danger, and take firefighters away from their families.

Know when it’s safe to burn and when it is not! If you aren’t sure, then don’t light it up - wait until conditions improve. It appears that may be a while as it will take inches of rain to pull us out of a drought and there’s no rain in our forecast for the next 5 days.

Please share this with your friends, family, and neighbors.

Stay SAFE!!

Thank you,

Judge Wayne McDaniel