Burn ban is issued for Houston County

The Perry Rotary Club met for its monthly meeting at Rozar Park on Monday, April 26. After President Major Bill Phelps sounded the bell, an invocation and the pledge of allegiance was led by Elwood Waites. Following the beginning of the meeting routine, rotary members were introduced to Don Thomas, Georgia Forestry Commission’s Chief Ranger for Crawford, Houston and Peach Counties, who addressed the club with the importance of forests, how Georgia is able to prevent severe wildfires and important news on the upcoming burn ban.

As of Saturday, May 1, a burn ban from Houston County to the Tennessee-Georgia line will go into effect until September 30. The ban forbids burning anything outdoors during the specified period of time. The ban is set in place to protect wild lands and citizens from the hazards of fire and smoke. According to Thomas, due to the amount of emissions from people traveling during the summer months mixing with the heat, the potential of also mixing with smoke from fires poses a significant threat to air quality. 

“It might seem inconvenient,” Thomas began to explain, “but at the end of the day, it’s not about you. It’s about all of us. So that’s what we do.”

Thomas detailed to the members how vital it is to follow rules and regulations set by the Georgia Forestry Commission. “It’s very important that we remain good stewards of it,” he stressed as he described the significance of the nation’s forests, specifically Georgia’s.

Though timber is ranked number three of Georgia’ economic drivers, and with Georgia, is the number one producer in the nation, it’s crucial not only for economic reasons, but for environmental and health reasons as well. According to Thomas, along with providing clean oxygen, “a good forest stand will soak up about 220,000 gallons of water. So the reason we don’t have more floods when it rains hard…is because we have timber lands that are soaking up the water to keep the runoff from being as bad as it is and to keep erosion down.”

Thomas began to reference the major fires burning in the West and how Georgia has developed a method that has proved tried and true to prevent such severe wildfires, referred to as prescribed burning management. He described the method to be a sort of “medicine to the forest,” explaining that it keeps the fuel load down and unmonitored, out of control fires to a minimum, unlike the situations prevalent in the West. Prescribed burning also rids the forests of harmful invasive species, allowing the wild land forest to grow and thrive so that the natural species and plants can grow, ultimately increasing wildlife.

“We manage, we protect and we make our forest healthy through wild land burn management,” declared Thomas.

A permit system is set in place for Georgia, and as Chief Ranger, it is Thomas’ job to enforce it. The system allows the forestry commission to monitor any fires burning in the area for the safety of the ecosystem and the people. They take many factors into consideration before approving a permit, including smoke dispersion, mixing height, relative humidity, wind speed, direction, and shift, and the drought index. Thomas also stated that in the state of Georgia, it is illegal to burn any processed material of any kind.

“We use the permit system to protect the citizens of Georgia, protect property and manage our forest,” Thomas informed.

To acquire a permit before the ban goes into effect or to inquire about other wild land related concerns, please visit gatrees.com/contact for more information.

HHJ News