Wondering if your parish has an active burn ban? The State Fire Marshal is making it easy to find out.
"In the past few days, we've had an increase in questions about the SFM issuing parish-specific burn bans due to the extreme heat/dryness or even if we keep tabs on parishes that declare their own burn bans," a post on the SFM Facebook page says.
Here's a map from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry: https://louisiana.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html...
As of today, August 2, there are at least four parishes that have declared their own burn bans: DeSoto, Caldwell, Lasalle and Vernon.
According to the SFM, burn bans apply to open burning practices (burn piles, burn barrels, etc.) of legal materials like vegetation.
Burn bans do not apply to approved, agricultural burn practices for farming, and burn bans do not apply to the recreational use of fire pits, campfires, or barbecue grills.
The SFM, in collaboration with the Louisiana Department of Ag & Forestry, only issues multi-parish and full, statewide burn bans, not individual parish bans. "Multi-parish" generally involves at least five connected parishes facing a similar fire threat at the same time, the post states.
When multi-parish and/or statewide burn bans are issued, they are generally due to an extended fire threat, but parish government leaders and/or bodies have the authority to issue parish-wide burn bans. Parish government leaders and/or bodies also have the authority to opt-out of a statewide burn ban.
Fire chiefs have the authority to allow for individual exceptions to a statewide burn ban.
To learn more about what's legal and not legal to burn in Louisiana, check out this page on the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's website: https://deq.louisiana.gov/.../BurningPresentation_2019...
