Preventing future wildfires: What fire mitigation changes could be coming to Reno County
23 March 2022
Published by: https://www.ksn.com
USA – RENO COUNTY, Kan. (KSNW) – Money for mitigation. It’s just one of the many things the Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer said he needs to prevent destructive wildfires.
The Reno County Commission has two meetings on Tuesday discussing fire mitigation and upgrades to prevent large wildfires in the future.
The first meeting was a study session where five different government agencies shared their requests to prevent fires in the future. These requests included possible changes to zoning, more education on fire risk, how to control burn, and enforcement to give fire chiefs more authority to ban people from burning. They also shared that mitigation of certain things like cedar trees needs to be a priority.
The chairperson of the Reno County Commission said some of these requests could happen within the next few weeks.
“We put a soft deadline of three months for a full list, but I would expect Adam, and the fire chief, and others, to bring back recommendations as early as next month,” said Daniel Friesen, the chairperson of the Reno County Commission.
There was a joint city of Hutchinson and county meeting Tuesday. During the meeting, Reno County Commissioners voted to split the cost of $880,000 in upgrades for the fire department.
The City of Hutchinson held a meeting Tuesday evening to will vote on the proposal. During that meeting, the council voted to approve the proposal 5-0.
You can watch that meeting on YouTube.
