Unauthorized fires are lighting up the night and igniting action from Poplar Bluff firefighters.
By Oct. 25, the Poplar Bluff Fire Department had run a total of 676 emergency calls this year. Of those 673 calls, 117 have been unauthorized fires, said Poplar Bluff Fire Chief Mike Moffitt.
On a recent night, the first of five calls came in about 7 p.m. advising there was a large amount of smoke in the area of Hampton Court.
According to Lt. Joshua Buhler’s report. The two man crew arrived to 107 block of Hampton Court to find a small unauthorized fire burning behind the house. Once made aware burning the limbs after dark was illegal, the occupant extinguished the fire.
Three minutes after the firefighters started to return to the station, they noticed a large amount of smoke coming from behind the resident of 187 Hampton Court.
The occupant stated he had been burning yard debris as well as other things. When advised of the city burn ordinance, he extinguished the fire. Seven minutes at the scene, the firefighters were about to return to the station when they noticed smoke coming from behind 2024 Thomas St.
They made contact with the occupant who said he was burning lumber. Once officers were investigating, they learned household trash also was burning.
The officers noticed exposed electric wire on the electric meter base so they called Municipal Utilities and the Poplar Bluff Police Department.
They used five gallon of water to put out the fire. They had been at the scene 25 minutes.
While the first crew was at the third sight, a second crew of three firefighters responded to 203 W. Victor St. to an unauthorized burn in the backyard. They extinguished the fire and informed the occupant about the ordinance.
When they cleared the scene 11 minutes later, they went to 1515 Thomas to another unauthorized burn. After explaining the ordinance, the occupants used a bucket of water to extinguish the small fire. They spent five minutes at the scene.
Moffitt said there is a city ordinance on unauthorized fires. According to the ordinance, the citizens of Poplar Bluff are allowed to burn leaves and limbs that originate on their property during daylight hours.
“Unfortunately, many of our citizens do not follow this ordinance,” Moffitt said. “Many are unaware of the ordinance and the others do not care. Our unauthorized fires mainly consist of people burning trash, copper wiring and burning after dark. There are multiple reasons for this ordinance, the smoke from unauthorized fires can be a nuisance to the public, unauthorized fires can spread possible causing a larger fire/structure/field/woods. The smoke from unauthorized fires can also be a health hazard to some with respiratory problems.”