Judge Allen on recent wildfires

ETB spoke with Jasper County Judge Mark Allen regarding the four fire calls within 30 minutes on Saturday.

Allen said, "At the moment, right now there is no immediate threat due to drought, although we have gone quite a few days since the last rain in some parts of Jasper County. I'm still waiting on additional information regarding the fires from today. However, I still have to urge our citizens to use caution when burning no matter if it is a large brush pile or a small campfire. It only takes seconds for one to get out of control. Keep a continuous water source nearby and we should all use common sense."

Allen added , "Do not burn where a fire can easily spread such as near a wood line or in areas with lots of leaves or pine needles on the ground. Also people still need to use caution when burning household and farm waste to ensure that cardboard and feed sack ashes don't float into the area and drift into areas where they will ignite other sources of fuel."

According to the Texas Forest Service the drought and fire danger are minimal, but this does not replace common sense and patience when burning.

Allen said that dry conditions are slowly moving back into Southeast Texas. Each day that goes by without rainfall, we move closer into that dangerous area.

Allen closed by saying, "I will continue to monitor this along with weather forecasts from the National Weather Service and will definitely keep (you) updated if action needs to be taken. As a reminder, the more careful that people are when they burn, the less likely they will have a fire that gets out of control. The less fires that are out of control means that fire departments are dispatched to fire scenes less. The less that our fire departments are pushed and fatigued from putting out fires, the less likely we are to have to enter into another burn ban."