St. Tammany News

St. Tammany Parish fire chiefs were hoping for rain Tuesday to help put a damper on an increasing number of brush fires during the past week.

"We need some rain desperately," Fire District No. 4 Chief Merrick Tassin said. His district battled a 20-acre wood fire near Louisiana Highway 1088 in the Mandeville area last week. Firefighters dug a trench around that fire until it burned itself out. It's unknown how the fire started, Tassin said. Fire District No. 5 Lt. Bill Skinner said there have been quite a few brush burns in the Folsom areas.

"The winds have been a factor," he said.

Most of the fires District 5 has responded to in the last 10 days have been a result of people burning debris, Skinner said.

"We had a fire Sunday that jumped out of a pit," he said.

Making matters worse, a Smokey-the-Bear sign along the main thoroughfare in Folsom was recently destroyed, Skinner said. If it were still functional, the sign would read "very high" as to the risk of a forest fire.

Despite the increased number of fires, Parish President Kevin Davis has not called for a burn ban. Due to a state of emergency that has been in effect since Hurricane Katrina, Davis has the power to call for a burn ban without the consent of the Parish Council, parish spokesperson Suzanne Parsons Stymiest said. She said John O'Neil, the director of the parish's Fire Service Department, is not anticipating a burn ban.

Tassin said his district could use a burn ban, "but hopefully we'll get some rain in the next couple of days."

Fire District No. 12 Chief Darrell Guillot said in his district, which covers the Covington area, there has only been one brush fire in the past week. He said conditions are not bad enough to issue a burn ban.

Tuesday morning, National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Destri said there was a 70 percent chance of rain for the area last night, today and tonight, with the heaviest amount of rain, 1 to 2 inches, falling today or tonight. There is a 50 percent chance of rain Thursday, he said.

The last time it rained in the parish was March 2, when a tenth of an inch of rain was recorded in Slidell. The last significant rain was Feb. 13, when 1.79 inches fell in the Slidell area, Destri said.