Garvin County is under a 14-day burn ban again this week after a vote of the Garvin County Board of Commissioners on Monday.
Garvin County Emergency Manager Dave Johnson told Commissioners during their regular meeting Monday that 11 of the county’s 12 fire departments strongly favored reissuing a burn ban resolution.
“We didn’t really receive any significant rain over the weekend, as I’d hoped we would,” Johnson said.
The county has been under a burn ban since Dec. 13, except for last week, when the board voted to allow the existing burn ban resolution to expire, in part to allow agricultural producers to conduct controlled burns of their pastures.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor Garvin County is currently experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions.
During Monday’s meeting the board also approved allowing Elmore City to begin the process of entering into a lease-purchase agreement for a new ambulance. The town will be using part of its county EMS tax money to purchase the vehicle. Currently Elmore City’s newest ambulance is 12 years old.
In order to speed up the current 24-month delivery time for a new ambulance, Elmore City’s Ambulance Service has opted to purchase a demonstration model that is still being finished, with an estimated delivery date of January 2023.
“We talked to our representative, who said they had this demo that was being built for another service. They no longer need it. It is almost identical to what we wanted originally, there are just a couple of things we’re going to have to compromise on. But it will be here in January, not in two years,” Lauri Ritchie, assistant EMS director for Elmore City, told the board.
Elmore City has been waiting for six months for their county EMS tax account to accrue enough money to begin the lease-purchase process. In that time frame, the ambulance price has increased three times, Ritchie said.