No rain for the past two weeks has left Greater Cincinnati so parched, some fire departments are banning open burning for the time being – no matter how much storm debris is piled up.
“It’s too dangerous to burn,” Fire Chief Jim Whitworth of Clermont County’s Miami Township said today. “We are trying to protect the public from small fires that may become wildfires.”
The last time the region saw rainfall was 0.01 of an inch on Sept. 14, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington.
That’s the same day hurricane-force winds of about 75 miles an hour raced through Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Indiana, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people and killing six people.
Warmer-than-usual temperatures ever since have only added to the dry spell, said meteorologist Julie Reed.
The average high for this time of year is about 75 degrees. High temperatures have hit the mid-80s this week and should reach 79 degrees today.
While temperatures are expected to cool into the mid-60s by Wednesday, there is no significant chance for rain anytime soon.
There are small chances for rain tonight, Saturday and again on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week, but most areas won’t see a drop, she noted.
All the more reason to restrict outdoor burning, Whitworth said.
Miami Township fire officials issue about 100 open burn permits a year, but they have strict regulations, he said.
Those include permitting burns only if the fire is more than 1,000 feet from a structure owned by someone else. Burns also aren’t permitted within 1,000 feet of incorporated areas such as Milford or Loveland.
But since the wind storm, Miami Township fire officials curtailed the number of permits issued and, as Friday morning, stopped issuing them altogether, Whitworth said.
Permits will be issued again once it rains enough to drench the risk of wildfires, he said.
“We struggle with open burning all the time,” he noted. “People want to burn just normal debris all year long - tree leaves and branches - rather than try to dispose of it appropriately.”
He suggests residents with fallen trees and branches from the storm contact their communities to see if they offer brush pick-up or drop off sites.
In Miami and Union townships, for instance, residents can obtain vouchers from township officials and then haul their debris to Bzak Landscaping, 931 Round Bottom Rd, Milford, Whitworth said.
In nearby rural Wayne Township, firefighters battled a brushfire Thursday afternoon that destroyed most of a 50-acre cornfield, said Wayne Township Fire Chief Dave Moulden. While the official cause of the blaze remains under investigation, the dry conditions and winds exaggerated it.
Firefighters managed to save a farmhouse from catching fire but couldn’t stop flames from ruining about 45 acres of corn and damaging a shed, Moulden said. “We were lucky to keep it to 50 acres,” he said. “The wind was driving it pretty hard.”
Wayne Township officials haven’t halted open burns yet, but residents shouldn’t strike a match unless it’s absolutely necessary, Moulden said.
“Storm debris can wait a week or so until we get a little bit of rain,” he said. “A little bit of rain, and we’ll be alright.”