Gilmer County, including the cities of Ellijay and East Ellijay, will remain under an outdoor burn ban until further notice.
Gilmer Fire and Rescue announced that decision Monday after initially extending the countywide burn ban, which has been in effect since Nov. 6, until Nov. 27.
“We’re extending the burn ban until further notice due to the extreme drought conditions. We will talk with Georgia Forestry and reassess regularly. They are the experts on this. They’re not issuing any (burn) permits to anyone right now, and we’re following their lead,” said Jason Bryant, Gilmer County deputy fire chief.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 7.6 percent of Georgia’s counties (including Gilmer) are still experiencing level three extreme drought conditions, while 2.2 percent (mostly in the upper northwest corner of the state) remain in highest-level exceptional drought conditions.
Some much-needed rainfall did arrive over Thanksgiving week, but it wasn’t enough to tip the drought needle back to severe drought (level two) conditions.
“It’s rare that we have a drought up here like this and south Georgia doesn’t,” Bryant said.
The emergency outdoor ban issued in conjunction with the Georgia Forestry Commission, Ellijay Fire Department and East Ellijay Public Safety applies to all residential and commercial outdoor burning including, but not limited to: campfires, debris removal, barrel burning, leaf clearing, land clearing, cooking and recreational warming fires.
Bryant said some good news to report is that there hasn’t been any brush fires that required attention from the fire department in the last two weeks.
However, that doesn’t mean no one is burning outdoors. Several calls about prohibited burning have been received and attended to, Bryant said.
If the fire department has to come back out after first telling someone to put out a prohibited fire, that person will be subject to a fine, he noted.