FORNEY, Texas — Officials from the Forney Fire Department and the Kaufman County Fire Marshal’s office released a public service announcement video this week reminding local residents about the rules and protocols concerning outdoor burning.
FORNEY, Texas — Officials from the Forney Fire Department and the Kaufman County Fire Marshal’s office released a public service announcement video this week reminding local residents about the rules and protocols concerning outdoor burning.
“The purpose of this PSA is to remind folks that while it is very wet and green right now, outdoor burning of any kind is prohibited inside the City Limits, but there is a process to legally burn in the county unincorporated areas,” Forney Fire Chief Derek Briggs tells inForney.com.
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“We are experiencing a very wet Spring, this will contribute to the increased fuel loads from vegetation later this year when it turns hot a dry. It will be imperative later this summer for folks to know when they should/should not burn,” Briggs said.
Briggs said the idea for the PSA came about after interaction with several property owners and citizens who were legally burning things outside the city in unincorporated areas of our Emergency Services District (ESD).
The Forney Fire Department provides Fire and Emergency Services to the City of Forney, the Town of Talty, and all of Kaufman County ESD#6. ESD#6 essentially has the same boundaries as the Forney ISD.
“We frequently get called to outdoor fires only to arrive and find out that it is a burn being conducted by the property owner. In many of these cases, the property owners were not aware of the County's guidelines on how to properly conduct an outdoor burn.,” Briggs says.
“We are certainly here to provide any help we can but there are risks involved with emergency response. Our hope is to reduce the number of mistaken event calls by providing some information to folks on how to go about making the proper notifications so that when a passerby calls 911 about an outdoor fire the dispatch centers are aware of the outdoor burn. When the proper notifications are made, it can prevent an unnecessary emergency response,” Briggs says.
Residents can reach county dispatch for non-emergencies at 469.376.4500.
More information is available at the Kaufman County Fire Marshall’s website available here.
“We just wanted to remind everyone about the rules and guidelines on for outdoor burning in the hopes of improving safety for everyone involved,” said Briggs.
