AIKEN, SC (WRDW/WAGT) – A week after the Belvedere Fire Department called for a fire ban, the Aiken County Council held an emergency fire ban meeting Monday night.

The council decided to pass the temporary burn ban, but only for the next two weeks.

The two-week limit is from November 4th to November 19th, and that’s because that’s the next council meeting. They say they will review the ban again to see if they need to continue it.

They also said that if it happens to rain heavily in the next few days, they might call another emergency meeting and decide to wrap it up sooner.

This comes after a desperate plea from local firefighters to stop burning your scraps.

There is tons and tons of debris in almost every neighborhood and October was very dry.

“Since Oct. 7, we’ve had no protection,” said Chad Hyler, chief of the Belvedere Fire Department.

They are trying to help and warn as many people as they can.

“The calls we’re getting and the messages we’re getting through social media people who are honestly scared to go to bed at night because of people burning 24 hours a day,” he said.

It’s been more than a month since Hurricane Helene hit and debris is still piled up on the sides of the roads.

While people wait for it to be cleaned up, some are taking matters into their own hands

“We’re up to almost $50,000 of recorded property that has already burned from illegal burning, sheds that have been burned, tractor trailers, various properties on fire owned by other people, not whether they intended to do it or not , but only for us. dry and they’re thinking about us, and then it’ll flare up again, you know, for another day or two,” Hyler said.

It can get dangerous fast, but there’s only so much they can do, especially if people are pretending to have a license.

“There’s only so much we can do,” he said. “We can’t force our way in and put someone’s fire out. They tell us they have a burning permit. We have no way of knowing if they do or not, so we have to trust that they do.”

So they called in officials to help.

“We need some law enforcement, you know, to back up when people are doing these things illegally,” Hyler said.

Over the weekend, the fire service announced a meeting to discuss the application would be held on Monday at 5pm, followed by a full meeting at 5.15am.

A few weeks after Hurricane Helene, we have yet to see any substantial amount of rain.

With piles of debris along the CSRA, they likely become fire starters.

“We need some enforcement when people are doing this illegally, but to date, we still have no assistance with any of those calls, other than asking for an emergency burn ban through county council,” Hyler said.

Hyler adds that they have no way of knowing if someone has a legal no-burn permit to burn debris in their home, which adds to the number of uncontrolled fires that can lead to even more devastation.

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