A lack of communication with the County by a landowner at 1154 250th Avenue on Tuesday, resulted in an unnecessary emergency run by Ellis County Rural Fire. Dan Wells with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) office in Hays told Hays Post, “There has been no change in policy on open burning. However, when someone is legally burning items on their property, they need to contact Ellis County law enforcement.” There is no KDHE permit required for the typical burning being done in rural or agriculture areas and no approval is needed from the KDHE.
According to Ellis County Rural Fire Director Dick Klaus, “Tuesday’s fire run was simply a miscommunication. The individual burning trash had called the KDHE, learned that they could not include mattresses and a microwave in the fire, took those items out of the trash burning, and then did not communicate with the county that they were going to go ahead and burn other items.”
Some items are illegal to burn. A complete list of the open burning regulations is available on the KDHE web site http://www.kdheks.gov 