Approaching summer days means getting to leave the stuffy kitchen and firing up the barbecue. During this time, Yorkton Fire Protective Services reminds residents of the bylaws regarding backyard barbecues, pits and open-air fires.
"One of the biggest hazards that we see with any kind of burning is irresponsible burning," said Deputy Fire Chief Trevor Morrissey. "Too large of fires, burning the wrong types of materials, burning when the winds are fairly heavy (faster than 10 km per hour) and unsupervised burning."
Backyard fires may seem small enough to control, but Morrissey warns there are many ways for a fun fire pit to turn dangerous.
"When the fire is left burning in the backyard it becomes a safety hazard for kids," he said. "You really have to be cognizant of your neighbours and your property. New types of siding is much more flammable and fire spreads much easier. Embers can travel quite a distance from a fire pit into fields and start some pretty major problems."
Dry seasons are particularly dangerous.
"We have very old trees in our city-you get embers landing in the tops of our trees and we can lose some valuable resources."
Current bylaws state fire pits must not be larger than 0.61 cubic metres (about a foot and a half in length and width) and pits must be covered with a heavy gauge metal screen. The receptacle itself must be made of non-combustible material, such as cement, brick or sheet metal.
Fuel for open-air fires may consist only of charcoal or cut, seasoned wood.
"We see a lot of high risk where we have fire pits that are burning palette wood and the flames are four to five feet in the air. We have been fortunate that collateral damage hasn't been extreme, but we know if we don't mitigate that now we're opening up to potential disaster," said Morrissey.
Other illegal substances for burning include rubbish, garden and lawn refuse, manure, animal carcasses or any material classified as a dangerous good (plastics, rubber, electrical cording, etc.).
The Fire Prevention Bylaw is currently undergoing changes that will further outline acceptable conditions of barbecues and revise all other precautions.
"We have changes that are proposed and coming forward in June," said Morrissey. "We're hoping that those changes will help to curb some of the problems we're having."
