Firefighters are reminding residents to hold off on any controlled burn plans — and to be extra careful with anything that can spark a fire — until at least Tuesday with critical fire conditions in place Monday afternoon and evening.
Red flag warnings are in effect until 8 pm for Lyon, Coffey, Morris, Osage and Wabaunsee counties, meaning automatic burn bans. Chase County is not in the red flag warning but is in a county-specific burn ban all day. Greenwood County is not in a red flag warning and is currently strongly discouraging any fire activity.
Emporia Fire Battalion Chief Eron Steinlage tells KVOE News people should not burn, regardless of whether they are in the city limits or not. He says there is a lot of available fuel that’s tinder-dry to start the week.
NWS is forecasting high temperatures near 80 degrees, along with relative humidity levels at 13-20 percent, dry grasses and southwesterly winds up to 20-30 mph for the afternoon and early evening hours.
Emporia Fire had to handle a controlled burn that went out of control in the 1300 block of North Highway 99 and got into over 40 large hay bales Sunday afternoon. Americus Fire had a small grass fire in the city limits earlier in the day.
KVOE and KVOE.com will have updates.
