OLYMPIA – The Thurston County Fire Marshal, in consultation with the Thurston County Director of Emergency Services, Department of Natural Resources, and the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), determined weather conditions within the county meet the fire danger level necessary to enact restrictions on outdoor burning to all lands regulated by Thurston County.
The Fire Safety Burn Ban applies to residential yard waste burning and all land clearing burns. The restrictions on outdoor burning during the summer have resulted in a significant drop in brush fires and property damage each of the past several years, according to fire officials.
“The fire safety burn ban is enacted when weather and fire fuel conditions reach a level of danger that may pose a threat to people and their property,” said Fire Marshal, Joshua Cummings. “The Department of Natural Resources has moved their fire risk on public lands in our region to ‘high’. This triggers the county’s process to enact the fire safety ban to minimize the threat of fires as much as possible through the restriction of residential and land clearing burns.”
At this time, recreational fires are allowed on private residential properties and in established fire rings within official county, state, and federal campgrounds. Recreational fires must be contained in approved concrete, stone or metal pits like those commonly found in campgrounds. The use of charcoal briquettes, gas, and propane barbeques will continue to be allowed under the burn ban.
The Thurston County Outdoor Burn Ban is effective as of 12:01 a.m., Saturday, July 13, 2024, and ending Monday, September 30, 2024. More information about burn bans is available at https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/board-county-commissioners/burn-ban-information.
To stay up-to-date on the status of burn bans, please visit for the ORCAA website at www.orcaa.org.
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OlyBlues
Typical of Thurston County to be behind the eight ball once again. Only after DNR, State Parks, and Grays Harbor County issues a burn ban do Thurston County officials wake up and realize they should probably do something, this despite multiple brush fires already having occurred in the south county.
Saturday, July 13 Report this
cappers
People have been setting off fireworks on the trails behind our complex.
Police have been contacted. However, it's difficult for them to find the perps exact location.
Fire dept has said to call if there is an active fire .
We understand that, however, there could be a fire and we wouldn't see it right away, but still smell smoke so , again, we wouldn't know where it is at 1st.
We don't want our apt complex to burn down because of some immature, thoughtless people using explosive rockets, etc.
Saturday, July 13 Report this
Rick15
What century is this? Burning undesired material of any kind to dispose of it should be banned permanently. There are always alternate ways of getting rid of it. That anyone would think "I don't want 'X' on MY PROPERTY, so I'm going to put it in YOUR LUNGS" is appropriate is horrendous.
Sunday, July 14 Report this
FirstOtter
We have begged the County Commissioners to ban fireworks in unincorporated Thurston county. They had a survey/comment period.
Of the 60+ people who responded, 58 of us pleaded for a fireworks ban say that the chance of fires in July, homes burning down, people being injured, veterans suffering PTSD, people's pets panicing or running away in terror, never mind the trash left over from a fireworks bash, wasn't worth the risk of fireworks.
Only two young men said we want our fireworks because they're fun.
So guess who the commissioners decided in favor of..the 58 people who asked for a fireworks ban?
Oh, of course not. They went with the two yahoos who want their FUN blowing things up and burning things down.
The commissioners even ignored the county's fire chiefs advice (speaking from their proefssional experienced) that fireworks ban should be county wide. And the commissioners ignored them. Now All those firefighting men or women can do is shake their heads at the obtuseness demonstrated by a commission that cannot understand why we're all upset about a few little firecrackers. (another indication they haven't a clue...an M80 is NOT a firecracker. It's a bomb.)
So this dragging their feet on a burn ban shouldn't come as a surprise. I'm sure it's because the commissioners live in well protected homes in the city ( perhaps they can't understand why Lacey, Oly and Tumwater all had fireworks bans) where they don't have to worry about wildfires. They're not those of us having twenty minutes to evacuate our homes. THey can't imagine seeing 30 foot tall walls of flame racing at us, or driving through a tunnel of flame and smoke so thick you can't see past your windshield wipers, burning our homes and livelihoods, killing our pets, having to put our suffering livestock down if they haven't died from being roasted alive. We're just a bunch of chicken littles. We're making it all up. I can see them rolling their eyes when we use up our 3 minutes of comment asking for them to Please listen. I can hear them thinking, "It's just a fire, for pete's sakes. Like in a fire place, right? And where we live, if there's a fire, the fire department is right there! Just stop nagging us with things like bans on fireworks. Focus on increasing my paycheck!! Re elect me so I can keep this cush position.""
The commissioners should all be forced to lose their homes to understand what it is we rural folks fear every summer.
Sunday, July 14 Report this