Open burning is allowed again in Mineral County for the grasses, leaves, weeds, branches and pine needles you’ve raked into your autumn burn-pile.

Starting this fall, you will need an online permit, as an entirely new system is in place.

Milo Nyseth, USFS Prevention Tech for Superior Ranger District, explained the reason for the change and challenges because some people do not have computer access.

“In years past, it was open burning come October 1st and you didn’t need a permit,” he said. “Most of this new process is for homeowners who have a small slash pile to burn and for them to do that, they need to go on-line and get an on-line burn permit. Almost all the counties around us have been doing so for some time.” One of the reasons that Mineral County is late to the party is because of the cost and operational charges of the system. But Mineral County will cover the cost so there is no charge for the permit or to burn for the residents of Mineral County.

“Once you have the annual permit, you’ll need to go into the system and activate your account every day that you are going to burn. It’s super user friendly from your computer or an app on your phone,” Nyseth promised.

What if you don’t have access to a computer?

“And that is something that we worked on because we know this is the case with many people,” said Lorie Cotter, District Fire Management Officer.

“They can come into our office (209 Riverside W., Superior Monday-Friday 8-4:30) and we will help them set it up online. Then they can call the district to activate if needed.”

Frequently asked questions consist of: How do I know if I can burn the day that I want to? The System doesn’t recognize my rural address, so what should I do? What if I forget or lose my burn permit number? What happens if I forget to activate my burn permit and burn that day? If I activate my burn permit, do I still need to call the Burn Hotline for a Go/No Go?

All of those questions have answers because the USFS have thought out as many scenarios as possible to make this efficient and easy. The system streamlines information sharing between fire departments and dispatch centers.

In past years, firefighters spent unnecessary time searching through paper files to verify burn permits. Now the access is at their fingertips immediately. Your first step is to log onto: http://app.egovmt.com/burnpermit/

As the fire season seems to be sizzling out, people remember the 2017 or even last year when the valleys were choked with smoke from distant fires and are grateful that this wasn’t a repeat.

“It was a pretty quiet season around here,” Nyseth reported with about 30 fires in the district. “They were all Type 5 fires which are the smallest fires that we have, and we were able to catch them early.” Cotter expanded.

“The one big one was the 5-acre Murphy Creek fire. But we had 3 Type 1 helicopters on it for 1 day because they were in the area as everyone was anticipating a bigger season,“ she said.

“We have a very large, prescribed burn program that will be visible to people again soon.”

However, Mary Jo Lommen, our Fire Warden, has started a Facebook page for Mineral County that people can follow that is loaded with the most current information for wildfires and prescribed fires which is Mineral County Fire Information in an effort to help keep the public informed, because until we have tracking snow, the fire season is still breathing.