Thanks to rains earlier this month, Guthrie County came out of its burn ban, but that doesn’t mean residents need to be any less cautious if they are openly burning something.

Sheriff Marty Arganbright says that even if a rural landowner is burning a small pile of leaves or even trash, it only takes a moment in the right conditions for things to take a turn for the worse. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio some common safety knowledge for controlled burns.

“When it’s windy, it can start to blow and get out of control. Everybody needs to think about where they’re going to start a fire. It’s good to have, if you’re burning leaves or paper, a burn barrel or some kind of wire fence closure, so it doesn’t blow the embers and get other things on fire. That can happen. Hopefully, like I said, it’ll get better as the spring gets warm and we get some green grass growing, and more rains.”

Arganbright mentions that whenever rural residents would like to conduct a controlled burn, whether it’s a small pile of dead vegetation or Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) ground, calling the sheriff’s office or local fire departments can be extremely helpful. It lets those entities know that, in case the fire is called in, there is actually someone there watching it, and they aren’t expending resources unnecessarily. And in the case of burning off CRP ground, fire departments may even help keep the fire contained and under control from the start.