BURN PERMIT APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum editor

Forms to request a burn permit are now available to those who live within the City of Forks' urban growth area.
The permit applications cost $10 and will allow the burning of storm-related debris at homes once approved.
City Attorney/Planner Rod Fleck said the burn dates will likely be sometime in May. He said the permit applications must be sent to the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency for approval.

The permit applications are available at the front desk of Forks City Hall.

The burn permit system addresses the piles of fallen tree limbs, branches and other downed foliage lingering in yards of homes across Forks, leftover from the windstorm of Dec. 2-3.

With state no-burn laws in effect homeowners in Forks are in a bind. If they haul the green waste away outside of Forks and the city's surrounding urban growth area to burn they still face steep fines. The option, so far, is to let it rot and hope for the best.

Some homeowners who live within the no-burn boundaries of Forks and its urban growth area, a region roughly defined as the prairie Forks is set in, have been fined for burning the green waste. The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency fines run as high as $700.

The Forks City Council approved an ordinance on Monday, Jan. 14 that would allow a short burn window, and led to the issuance of the permit applications.

Councilmembers at the meeting felt any price higher than the $10 would be too high for the public to accept.
The burn permit forms would be mapped and both the map and the forms are to be sent to the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA) for final approval.

Once approved by ORCAA a "relatively short window" of time will be decided upon, Fleck said, to allow the yard burning. He added that the piles burnt needed to be of reasonable size, and that only storm debris must be the primary material burnt.
He said the state Department of Natural Resources will be consulted in determining  the dates in regards to weather and other factors, which the agency has expertise in from overseeing slash burning on harvested timber lands.

Advance notice will be given to the public to allow those with breathing problems to leave the area, or make other arrangements to stay away from the smoke, he said. In addition, local fire companies will be alerted of the burn days as a cautionary measure.

Fleck said the permitting process might be enacted again and used again following another major wind storm.