(Seguin) – Guadalupe County residents have at least a couple of more weeks in which to burn their piles of brush before officials consider implementing another burn ban.
Last week, the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court decided that it would bring back the issue to the table this week after allowing its original burn ban order to expire on midnight Sept. 6.
On Tuesday, the court, yet again, decided to take no action on the issue. The decision was based on the current conditions as expressed by Patrick Pinder, the Guadalupe County Emergency Management Officer and Fire Marshal.
“We have had one fire that was started from a controlled burn that got out of control and it burned some property. We had some other smaller fires that happened since then but there was only one that we could document that was the cause of somebody’s neglect. My recommendation would be similar to what it was last week. I feel with the current conditions that we have that we would not take no action on this and then if conditions worsen by the end of the month, then I would consider putting it back on the agenda the last court of this month so that would give about two weeks before we consider,” said Pinder.
Applauding the consensus to leave the item alone for now was Commissioner Pct.1 Greg Seidenberger.
“The good news is I’ve had several calls from agriculture interests trying to burn debris piles and stuff so it’s good for these farmers and ranchers to be able to do that, so I think postponing the burn ban for a couple of weeks is probably good for the agriculture community,” said Seidenberger.
Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says driving around, he has witnessed folks trying to combat higher than normal piles of brush. He says although the burn ban is not in effect at this time, he hopes that residents will continue to practice safety and common sense.
“It looks like there is a chance of rain later this week, over the weekend, beginning of next week. I think it’s a good, responsible kind of mindset to take saying look, we know it’s dry and there are still some areas of concern but it’s not as severe as it was a month or two months ago — had high humidity, low winds. Everybody needs to probably get some of this stuff cleaned off, but I think we just need to be a little bit flexible as we move into the next couple of weeks because like you said things could be very different in seven, 10, 14 days from now if we don’t get some of the expected rain. Everybody needs to take advantage of it while being very safe when they go to burn some of these piles. Please check with the fire marshal’s office if you have any questions on what is allowed to burn,” said Kutscher.
The Guadalupe County Emergency Management office can be contacted at 830-303-8856.