Fire ban

Fire ban
Every year it's a little too late

June 19, 2001

The Montezuma County commissioners on Monday reinstated a countywide fire ban. That ban is in force unless and until they lift it, as they do every year when the fire danger lessens.

Every spring, though, they wait too long to bring it back into force.

The fire season is predictable. The sun and the wind draw moisture from the landscape until the fire danger is high. Summer storms bring lightning, which starts fires that sometimes are not located until they’re difficult to handle. Those forces are out of our control, but every year they require attention and resources from area fire departments. That can’t be helped.

The county does have control over another part of the equation, though. Landowners burn trash and ditches, and nearly every day, the wind catches one of those fires and whips it out of control. Last week such a preventable fire destroyed a house. There is no good reason to allow "controlled" burns — a phrase which may be an oxymoron — at a time when other fires are already taxing our firefighting capabilities.

Most people who use fire as a tool are law-abiding citizens who would respect a fire ban whenever the county decided to enact one. While it may be convenient to wait until the brush or trash is as dry as it can hardly get, that delay is hardly essential. The county commissioners could set aside several weeks during a safe time to enable landowners to clear land.

They could also reinstate the burn ban a month earlier each spring than they actually do. Why wait until human-caused fires have destroyed expensive property and endangered firefighters?

Common sense should prevail. The burn ban should go into effect by June 1 every year. Failing that, landowners should use more common sense than they’ve managed to show so far.