Outdoor burning
Kentucky has two forest fire hazard seasons each year:
- February 15 through April 30
- October 1 through December 15
During those seasons it is against state law to burn anything within 150 feet of woodland or brushland between 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM. Burning is allowed after 6:00 PM and before 6:00 AM, when humidity is higher and wind is usually lower.
Outside those seasons, state law does not restrict the hours, but the fire is still your responsibility.
If you're going to burn
- Check the wind first. If the trees are moving, wait for another day.
- Clear a wide ring down to bare dirt around the pile before you light it.
- Keep the pile small and feed it, rather than lighting one enormous pile.
- Have a way to put it out standing by; a hose, a full water tank, a rake and a shovel.
- Stay with it until it is out, not until it looks like it's dying down.
- Never burn tires, shingles, treated lumber, or household trash.
- Call before you burn, so a neighbor's smoke report doesn't turn into a full response. Rockcastle Dispatch Non-Emergency Number 606-256-2121
If a fire gets away from you, call 911 immediately. Do not spend twenty minutes trying to catch it yourself first. We would much rather come to a small fire than a big one
Put your address where we can see it
We lose time looking for a house number. At night, on a road with long driveways and no streetlights, an unmarked drive can cost several minutes.
- Post your number at the road end of your driveway, not just on the house.
- Use reflective numbers at least four inches tall.
- Make sure it can be read from both directions of travel.
- Cut back the brush and limbs that have grown over it since you put it up.
- If several houses share a drive, mark which is which.
Can a fire truck get to your house?
An engine is roughly ten feet wide with the mirrors out, twelve feet tall, and weighs upwards of fifty thousand pounds loaded.
- Overhanging limbs need clearing to about thirteen feet up.
- A soft or washed-out drive will strand a loaded truck, and then it's blocking everything behind it.
- Private bridges and culverts need to actually hold the weight.
- A turnaround at the top matters. Backing a tanker a quarter mile down a hill in the dark is slow and dangerous.
- Gates need to be openable, and if they're locked we need to know how you want that handled.
Smoke alarms
A working smoke alarm roughly halves your chance of dying in a house fire. Out here, where we may be ten minutes away on a good night, early warning matters. The alarm is not a backup to the fire department, it's the primary thing keeping you alive.
- One on every level of the house, including the basement.
- One inside each bedroom and one in the hallway outside the bedrooms.
- Test them monthly. It takes ten seconds.
- Replace the whole alarm every ten years; the sensor wears out even if it still chirps.
- If one starts chirping at three in the morning, change the battery. Do not pull it off the ceiling and set it on a shelf. That is how people die.
Plan two ways out of every room, pick a spot in the yard where everyone meets, and practice it with the kids. Then, if it happens, get out and stay out.