(Undated)– Authorities are requesting those who plan on doing any open burning this spring to contact them AHEAD of time. Kirk Dunleavy of the Jackson Fire Department says in Minnesota, residents can also fill out an actual permit…
“Just fill that out. They’re good for two years. It doesn’t cost the permit holder anything. They give you the rules of what you need to do so you can do it legally. Basically you call the LEC and say, hey, I’m going to be burning the ditch at this location and I’m going to be doing it according to the rules and they put a pin on the map. And then when someone randomly calls in your fire and doesn’t stop and ask what’s going on, they’ll maybe dispatch a deputy or they’ll call actually to the permit holder and make sure everything’s okay.”
Dunleavy says it’s important authorities know of such open burning in advance to help prevent having to run equipment out when it really isn’t needed…
“When we get out there we’re going to, when we get out the doors we’re going to bill people if we have to go out there. And also if we have a lot of people responding through town which creates some issues, we have fire trucks that are going on the way out there and we don’t know exactly what we have and what we don’t. We don’t want to have to call them out there if we don’t have to.”
Dunleavy says public safety also comes into play anytime fire and rescue vehicles are on the road.
