Residents must have permits for outdoor burning in Gibson County

GIBSON COUNTY, Tenn. — With dry temperatures and the lack of rain lately, city leaders are asking folks to be cautious when burning.

“This time of year is bad time of year to burn anything,” Humboldt Assistant Fire Chief Leroy Kail said. “But right now it is really bad because of the lack of rain that we’ve had lately.”

In Gibson County Fire Departments are cracking down on unauthorized outdoor burning.

“Now if somebody wants to burn some stuff we’ll go out and look at it, and we may approve them to go ahead and do something,”Kail said. “But legal wise we don’t allow any burning in Humboldt.”

Beside grilling, from now until May, permits are required to do any outside burning. Even once you get a permit you are required to notify the county every time you burn.

“Everything is still dry and it don’t take much for it to burn,” Kail said. “And when you get something burning it burns pretty quick.”

Earlier this week, it took the Gibson County and Humboldt Fire Department hours to get a tractor fire under control once the fire spread across a corn field.

“By the time we go to it, it had already got going in the field, so we had it running across the field too,” Kail said. “So it don’t take much for it to get started.”

To get your permit or see a list of items that can not be burned log on to www.burnsafetn.org Although burning is allowed in some parts of Gibson County, this may not be the best time for burning.

“The county will issue permits sometimes and the state forestry issues permits,” Kail said. “But right now basically I would say pretty much in a burn ban until we can get some rain.”

The Department of Forestry will not issue permits if it is considered unsafe to conduct a burn based on weather or other factors. There may be a fine and or jail time for anyone illegally or reckless burning.