Burning the Main Topic at Public Safety Committee Meeting

During the city’s Public Safety Committee meeting this past Wednesday evening, resident Dan Miller appealed to committee members to see if there is anything that could be done regarding recreational burning.

Miller said he and his family are smelling a lot of smoke passing through their home as a result of neighbors making constant use of their fire pits. He explained that his wife had recently undergone brain surgery, and because of that, she is particularly sensitive to smoke. His daughter, now 21, has developed a cough.

It’s a delicate issue, one that can often blur the line between the rights of residents to conduct lawful recreational burning, and the rights of all to be able to avoid constant risks to overall health and well-being.

First District Alderman Tracy Snead, who serves as the committee’s chair, said that this is an issue that comes up just about every year.

The usual way to try to get someone to put a fire out when all else fails is to simply call the police, which Miller has done.

But Captain John La Tour of the Muskego Police Department, who serves as the P.D.’s liaison to the committee, said that, currently, “every day is a new day”, in the sense that, if the police tell someone to put out a fire and the person complies, then wants to have a fire the next morning, it’s perfectly fine.

Snead stated that there’s “no simple fix to this” and told Miller that he may have to just continue to call the police.

It was also pointed out that Waukesha County provides mediation between neighbors who willingly agree to enter it. 

In the meantime, the committee will take a look at the burning ordinances in other communities in the area.

For clarification purposes, it was noted by a number of committee members that the issue of leaf burning was not being discussed, which is a separate issue. What was being discussed was recreational burning, such as camp-style fires.