EDITOR,
Why are we getting new regulations, instead of enforcing the ones we have?
Small hot fires — I’ve not seen this enforced by any fire department since I left Boulder Creek in 1997. Burn criteria states wood or debris should have one month of dry time per inch of material. If a fire is creating black billowing smoke or is blanketing the area, we are supposed to stop the burn and wait for the proper conditions and ensure our burn pile is dry.
There is nothing wrong with that regulation. It simply is not enforced by the enforcing agency, the fire department. What’s wrong with having the fire department once again enforcing this?
In the mid-1990s the Boulder Creek Fire Department would hose down any fire creating a health hazard. That worked. Burn regulations we already have ensured there was not a health hazard. The authorities need to enforce them, not add new regulations and let the existing problem of improper burn management persist.
Scott Peden, Ben Lomond