Rain moved through Angelina County on Tuesday, and the burn ban is still on.
Angelina County Emergency Management sent word Wednesday that the county remains under a burn ban despite the rainfall. The rain helped, and the numbers show it, but the county says drought conditions are still a concern.
The measure the county watches is the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, which gauges soil moisture to assess how likely a fire is to catch and spread. As of Tuesday, Nov. 3, the reading was 842. By Wednesday, Nov. 4, it had dropped to 648.
That’s a real improvement in one day. It isn’t enough. The county’s word for the conditions after the rain is “dry enough to warrant continued caution,” and the ban stays in effect until further notice.
The index works that way. It’s a running measure of how much moisture the soil has lost, so a wet Tuesday moves it a long way in a hurry and a dry week moves it right back. One good rain reads as progress on the chart without ending the drought underneath it.
What it means this weekend
No outdoor burning. The brush pile and the stack of limbs wait a while longer, and anyone planning work that involves fire should check with the county before striking a match. The commissioners court is what sets and lifts a burn ban in Angelina County.
The ban has been in place since mid-October, when it went out over the Angelina County Emergency Alert System as a seven-day order. It has outlasted that window by about three weeks.
Angelina County Emergency Management asks residents to keep cooperating and to refrain from outdoor burning while the ban is up. County emergency information is posted at angelinacounty.net/emergency.
