How to celebrate this Labor Day weekend during a burn ban

WARREN COUNTY, Ky . -If you plan to do any grilling this Labor Day weekend, you may want to think twice.

Here’s how the burn bans in place could affect your holiday.

All across south-central Kentucky, the lack of rain has led to near drought conditions, resulting in burn bans in multiple counties across the area. This has led to multiple fires spreading in farm fields, on the side of highways and in residential yards.

While field fires haven’t been rampant this year, fire personnel say most of the calls have come from people burning irresponsibly.

Woodburn fire chief Bob Skipper says, “Most of the runs that we’ve made over the last few weeks have been related to the burn ban, where people have been burning, and we’ve had to go and inform them of the burn ban and ask them to put the fires out. But that’s not to say that a large field fire couldn’t happen any time now, especially now that the farmers are in the fields harvesting corn.”

Skipper says a small breeze can be enough to pick up a burning piece out of a field fire and spread it to another field in just a matter of seconds.

However, Labor Day is this weekend, and all over the country, people will be enjoying their long weekend celebrating. But how could this burn ban affect any festivities that you might have planned?

Skipper says, “Technically, it is all encompassing. Charcoal grills are not allowed. You’re not allowed to use those. You’re not allowed to burn in a fire pit. Not even allowed to shoot off fireworks. Those can create a fire as well. But we just we ask people to use common sense. And, if you’re going to use, like, a gas grill to grill outside, keep a water hose handy or a bucket of water so that if something happens, and it catches the grass on fire by your grill, you can put it out easily.”

With the dry weather sticking around, at least for a little while longer, the burn ban could be in effect for the foreseeable future.

So how much rain do we need to see before the burn ban is lifted?

According to Skipper, a lot of it is going to be the quality of the rain, whether we get it over a period of time versus a 1-inch downpour in a short period of time where a lot of it’s going to run off and not do any good.

It’s just going to have to be a significant amount of the right kind of rain so that we break the drought and things can start greening up again.

To see the latest list of burn banes in the viewing area, click here.