After multiple fires in Brown County and the surrounding counties, commissioners voted to impose a burn ban for Brown County effective today, Monday, August 10, 2015 at their regular meeting of the court.

Commissioner Joel Kelton made the motion stating, “Although the Keetch-Byram Index doesn’t show it (a high fire potential) there were reports of numerous fires around us and in the county to warrant a burn ban.”

The Keetch-Byram Drought Index is used to determine forest fire potential. The drought index is based on a daily water balance, where a drought factor is balanced with precipitation and soil moisture (assumed to have a maximum storage capacity of 8-inches) and is expressed in hundredths of an inch of soil moisture depletion.

The drought index ranges from 0 to 800, where a drought index of 0 represents no moisture depletion, and an index of 800 represents absolutely dry conditions. Presently, this index is derived from ground based estimates of temperature and precipitation derived from weather stations and interpolated manually by experts at the Texas Forest Service (TFS) for counties across the state.

Currently Brown County is in the 400-500 range, according to the index.

To view the current KBDI map of Texas counties, CLICK HERE.