Declaration extended in Guadalupe County
(Seguin) — If your negligence during these extreme drought conditions leads to property damage, then expect those consequences to double.
Recent action by Guadalupe County officials only reinforces those consequences. Last week, Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher issued a declaration of local disaster due to the extreme drought and wildfires. This week, the county upheld the declaration and extended it through next month.
Patrick Pinder, Guadalupe County emergency management coordinator and fire marshal says one of the ways that this disaster declaration hopes to make an impact is by increasing the punishments for failing to be safe.
“With the disaster declaration put into place, it’s still a Class C misdemeanor with a fine that currently was $500 but now with this Local Government Code that the judged signed — with the disaster declaration, that fine can go up to $1000 and also up to a time of 180 days in jail. So if you are burning during the burn ban without consent from the fire marshal’s office or if you are caught burning a brush fire or something like that you could be cited $1,000 or be taken to jail,” said Pinder.
Pinder says it’s just too dangerous to not be careful.
“The KBDI which is the burn index for the drought ratio measures the depth inside the soil, the soil is dry. We are in the high 700 which means there is no water in the dirt so when these fires are occurring, they are just running across the dry vegetation that is dead on the top of the ground and they are just moving and that’s what we are seeing in these fires and so what we are urging residents to do is be cautious. The burn ban is in effect. You are not able to burn. The only way you are allowed to burn is in a burn barrel and it’s household rubbish and you have to have a cover on it but if that burn barrel gets out of control, you are liable criminally and civilly if you damage somebody else’s property. So right now, the best advice we can give at the fire marshal’s office is do not burn anything,” said Pinder.
Average residents, however, are not the only ones being reminded to be careful.
“We are seeing some smaller fires that are kicking up on the roadsides and those are just fires that we will see from dragging chains and things like that and so we are mitigating those as they come through. The agriculture community is still cutting hay and things like that so right now, some of the fires that we are seeing are because of those hay cutters and stuff so we are asking those farmers to carry a fire extinguisher with you, make sure you are getting those fires out early, call 9-1-1 right away if you see you are having a fire or kicking up some sparks and things like that because we want to make sure that we get these fire departments in route to you soon,” said Pinder.
Pinder says one of the added benefits of the disaster declaration is being able to offset the cost of having to battle these fires each day.
“That allows for opportunities for cost tracking and tracking expenses for fire responses. We’ve had several large fires over the last few weeks where we’ve had to get in-state resources, and teams from out of the state. We’ve had people from Florida. We’ve had people from Louisiana come in and help Guadalupe County residents fight fires and the volunteer fire departments in these areas and what this does is it allows for when disasters make it to that threshold that the county has, we can get some eligible funding sources through the state grants for wildfire mitigation and fire department resources,” said Pinder.
Pinder says county officials this week have aligned the disaster declaration to run concurrent with the burn ban which runs through Oct. 9. At that time, he says the county will either reconvene before or on a court date to discuss an extension of a burn ban and/or an extension of the disaster declaration.