Cascade County Public Works is conducting a scheduled burn at one of the county gravel pits this week.
The pit is located west of 13th Street South and 33rd Avenue South.
The burn began Jan. 8 and may burn through the end of this week with county staff on site continuously to monitor the burn.
Two areas on the property are burning at the same time, according to public works.
Les Payne, county public works director, said the burn is standard practice. Throughout the year, county public works staff pick up debris, broken wood sign posts, leaves, tree trimmings and such that gets dumped at the closest county pit location where the county can do a controlled burn, Payne told The Electric.
“This saves us from transporting these items from one end of the county, to the other end of the county, which helps us save taxpayer dollars from additional fuel costs, and putting high miles on the fleet. When we perform these controlled burns, we go through the same practices as a resident, we apply for a burn permit, then we activate the permit on a day, that is safe for burning, which is normally when we have snow on the ground,” Payne told The Electric.
He said he wanted to make the public aware of the burn to help eliminate a high volume of calls coming into the 911 dispatch center regarding the fire.
