A Carbon County commissioner, who is also a volunteer firefighter, is urging people to refrain from burning, or if they feel they need to, take precautions.

Dry conditions now can easily lead to brush fires.

On Thursday, Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that Wednesday was a “really busy day with this dry weather” with regards to fire departments being called to fires.

Out of the 23 departments that serve Carbon County, he said about only three or four were not dispatched to a call on Wednesday.

“A lot of them were out of county,” Nothstein said, adding that a few of the departments were being called to another incident before they were even finished with the one they were at. “They were extremely busy yesterday.”

He said some of the incidents were dwelling fires, while others were brush fires and one in Monroe that even damaged the bell tower of a church.

“It’s extremely dry out there and I would caution anyone not to burn,” Nothstein said.

He also reminds smokers not to throw their cigarette butts out car windows or on the ground because with the dry vegetation, a cigarette butt can start a fire.

Some Carbon County communities currently are under 30-day burn bans due to the conditions, but when asked if the county would consider a county-wide burn ban, Nothstein said the county would not because it is late in the brush fire season and at least 50% of the fire departments haven’t requested one.