Burn Ban On in All Four Kerr County Precincts — and the Brush the Flood Knocked Down Isn't Going Anywhere

KERRVILLE, Texas — A burn ban took effect across all of Kerr County on Wednesday morning, shutting down open-flame outdoor burning in Precincts 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the same moment thousands of residents are still hauling out what the July flood left behind.

The county posted the ban to its homepage and Facebook page, effective the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 2. It applies countywide.

What it means

Kerr County cites Texas Local Government Code Section 352.081 — Regulation of Outdoor Burning — as the basis for its burn ban. Under that statute a commissioners court may restrict outdoor burning when the Texas A&M Forest Service determines drought conditions exist, or when circumstances create a public safety hazard. The county notes the county judge may alternatively cite the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 or HB 2620.

The ban is not a single countywide switch. As the county puts it on its own public notices page: "County commissioners are individually responsible for determining the status of burning in their precincts." All four are currently on.

Knowingly violating a burn ban order is a Class C misdemeanor, carrying a fine of up to $500. But the county warns the exposure does not stop there — it points to Texas Penal Code Section 28.04, Reckless Damage or Destruction, which allows "a possible fine of up to $10,000 and/or jail confinement" for violators. In other words, the ticket is the floor, not the ceiling. If a fire someone sets during the ban damages someone else's property, the charge changes.

Statutory exceptions survive a ban, including firefighter training authorized by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; public utility, natural gas pipeline and mining operations; planting and harvesting of agricultural crops; and prescribed burns run by a certified and insured burn manager.

Anyone planning a prescribed burn in Kerr County must file a formal plan using a template from the Prescribed Burn Alliance of Texas, the Texas Department of Agriculture or Texas Parks and Wildlife, and must notify the Kerr County Sheriff's Office, the nearest volunteer fire department, the Texas Forest Service and the TCEQ before lighting anything.

The part nobody has said out loud

The ban lands in the middle of a cleanup.

Kerr County began an emergency debris pickup on Aug. 26 — a three-week program under a contract with Garner Environmental Services not to exceed $500,000 — to haul away wreckage from the July 16 catastrophic flood. But that program covers only construction and demolition material: wood, steel, concrete, brick, masonry block, drywall, plaster, carpet and flooring, from unincorporated parts of the county, placed at the road's edge.

It explicitly does not cover vegetative debris.

Which leaves the downed limbs, root balls, uprooted Juniper Ash trees and river-scoured brush piles stacked on property across the county with nowhere to go and, as of Wednesday morning, no legal way to burn them. Residents clearing flood debris who were planning to put a match to a brush pile this month need another plan. The county has not announced a vegetative debris drop-off or chipping program.

When a precinct comes off the ban

Because each commissioner controls burning in his own precinct, the ban can lift in one part of the county while staying on in another. The county asks that anyone planning an open-air, open-flame fire in a precinct without a ban notify their nearest volunteer fire department and the Kerr County Sheriff's Office before igniting.

The county also says maps of designated burn ban zones are still "to come."

How to check before you burn

The county says burn ban status can be confirmed three ways:

• Online: the county homepage at kerrcountytx.gov
• Burn ban hotlines: 830-792-HEAT (4328) or 830-315-BURN (2876)
• Facebook: the county's page at facebook.com/kerrcountytexas

Questions about the ban may be directed to the Kerr County Commissioners' Court at 830-792-2215.