Smoke and haze from wood chip fire

The smoke and haze that commonly fill the Yuma skies this time of year due to controlled burns have been worse than usual this week due to a wood chip pile burning since Monday.

Rural/Metro Fire Marshal Curt Foster explained that the chip pile, located west of Avenue A on County 13th Street, is about three-quarters of an acre large and accidentally caught fire while the farmer was conducting a small controlled burn in the same area.

“The wind picked up and it got out of control, spreading to the chip pile,” Foster said Thursday. “Right now he is trying the best he can. He has brought in some heavy equipment and is flooding the area with water. Basically, what he has done is make a huge lake in the middle of the piles, then used the heavy machinery to put the burning material into the flooded area to try and get the fires out.”

The farmer brought in an excavator and a backhoe to spread out the chip pile. Each time a pile of chips was dumped or pushed into the water, it sent huge plumes of gray and brownish smoke into the air.

Foster said the farmer was storing the wood chips on his property because he had a contract to sell them to a power plant in El Centro that uses wood chips to produce electricity.

“(The farmer) has been very receptive. He is being very cooperative to get this done and taken care of. We know it is an issue for the people in the community. This fire was accidental. It was not intentionally set. The controlled burn was, but not the chips. The chips were something he did not intend to burn.”

While the farmer is doing everything he can, Foster said, he is in a difficult situation because not only is the ground in the area soft, it is also very sandy, which is making it very hard to get heavy equipment in the area.

“All in all, it is just an unfortunate situation. And everybody involved is doing the best they can to resolve it as soon as possible.”

Foster said to help the farmer get the situation under control, Rural/Metro will be sending a brush crew to the site of the fire to work along its perimeter. The goal, he said, is to try to either get the fire completely out or to a point where it wasn’t such a nuisance by 3 p.m. Thursday.

While year-round burning is permitted in Yuma County, Foster explained that toward the end of winter growing season, farmers typically begin to burn off their fields in preparation for the next season of crops.

“The farmers are in transition, changing their products in the field, which requires some burning.”

Foster said the burns are generally conducted in the morning to allow the smoke to dissipate by afternoon. Therefore, smoke will be visible in the county, from the Wellton and Tacna areas to Mexico, but residents should not be concerned.

Rural/Metro administers the control burn program locally through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the Yuma County Health Department. Foster estimates that Rural/Metro issues between 800 and 1,000 permits a year countywide.

“That includes Dateland, Tacna and Wellton, basically everything south and west of the Colorado River to the county line. Accidents do happen, and this fire was an accident.”

Foster said each day Rural/Metro checks with the weather bureau to see if it will be a safe day for burning. High winds can make burning dangerous, but some wind is necessary to keep the smoke from hanging in one place, he said.

While some residents may not like all of the smoke in the air, Foster said, the burns are something that farmers need to do.

Also contributing to Yuma’s hazy skies this time of year, Foster said, is that Imperial County is heavily agricultural and depending on which direction the wind is blowing, usually from the north or northwest, smoke from controlled burns in the Bard area gets blown into Yuma.

There is also a lot of farming going on in Mexico this time of year, Foster added, which means farmers across the border are burning off their fields as well and that smoke can spread into Yuma.

“We are kind of in a little triangle where there is more than one source of smoke. There are basically three to four sources of smoke at any given time.”

Making matters worse, Foster said, is that due to how nice the weather is this time of year, people tend to do more outdoors, which means having to deal with the smoke.

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854. Find him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/YSJamesGilbert or on Twitter @YSJamesGilbert.