The Kenai Peninsula burn suspension is on hold due to recent weather conditions, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Even with cooler temperatures and snow remaining in some areas, the newly exposed dry grass and leaves create conditions where fire can easily escape its intended area.
Howie Kent, Fire Management Officer for the Kenai/Kodiak Area spoke to KSRM, “We were initially going to put a burn suspension in place come May 1st, but because of weather conditions, you know we’re getting a little cloud cover now and our conditions aren’t quite where they normally are this time of the year. We’re going to just delay that a little bit. We’ll wait for the next high pressure system to come in before we implement that and we’ll let folks know as soon as that happens, but for now burning on the Peninsula for ridding of debris and those kinds of things are still good to go, but folks do need to remember that they have to get a permit and stick to the stipulations of that permit.”
Kent provides some fire safety tips, “Just make sure that they have good clearance around their pile. If you’re burning a debris pile, make sure that it’s no bigger than 10-foot in diameter, 4-feet high. If you are burning in a burn barrel, make sure that you’ve got all the adequate screening and good clearance around that down to mineral soil and you stay in attendance of your fire. Also, that you’re only burning natural, organic material. We get a lot of folks that burn all kinds of garbage and trash and that’s not approved and that’ll trigger a call from the department of environmental conservation. It is a citable offense, too. We don’t want to have to issue anybody a citation, which could have some monetary effects, but we do have that option if that comes to be.”
The public is requested to continue to follow safe burning practices outlined in the required burn permits and to check previous areas of burned debris piles for ‘holdovers’ to ensure no heat remains. Fire can continue to burn underground through duff layers and roots systems for months, only to resurface and spark a wildfire.
Burn suspensions will be communicated promptly once they go into effect.
