Virginia Department of Forestry takes down 4 p.m. burn ban signs

A 4 p.m. burn ban sign the Virginia Department of Forestry is taking down. (Courtesy of Virginia Department of Forestry)

The Virginia Department of Forestry is changing how it warns people about a state fire safety law that makes burning anything before 4 p.m. illegal, by removing the physical burn ban signs along roadways and posting digital notices on the information highway of the internet, instead.

During the spring wildfire season each year Feb. 15 to April 30, the law forbids open air burning within 300 feet of the woods or dry grass which could carry fire to the woods, except between 4 p.m. and midnight. That information is printed on two-foot by three-foot metal signs posted along roadways statewide. Now, foresters are taking the signs down and spreading the word via informational posts on Facebook, X and the neighborhood chat forum Nextdoor.

“It’s a very specific change in methods, but nothing to do with the overall mission or importance of the message,” said State Forester Rob Farrell.

The signs, which began coming down this spring, were first installed about 75 years ago: on one side, there are instructions in red lettering spelling out the periodic burn ban; on the other side are the words “Keep Virginia green,” in emerald letters.

Before the transition to digital messaging, every year on the first day of burn ban period, a local forrester from one of the department’s field offices needed to drive around to the signs, undo two bolts, flip the sign over to the red-lettered side, clean it and make sure it’s legible. On April 30, when the burn ban period ended, a forester flipped the sign back to the other side.

“Every DOF local office has a map in a file, and they have a little ‘X’ where each of their signs are, so they can help themselves to remember where all the signs are. Every year, a new forester will come to an area and have to go and find where all the signs are on February 15,” Farrell said. “A county could have a dozen signs, and then you have 100 in some localities across the state. It certainly could be over 1,000 of these signs around the state.”

All of that flipping takes time, which Farrell said “could be better spent assisting landowners, assisting loggers, doing all of the other work that our field staff do across the state.” The practice also presented safety concerns for the foresters, Farrell said.

“They’re flipping metal signs on the side of rural roads, which are getting busier and busier and busier, and traffic is going faster and faster.”

So, why does the spring burn ban lift at 4 p.m.?

“There’s nothing magical about four o’clock,” said Farrell. “You just got to pick a time, but [at] four o’clock, things are starting to turn in our favor. Temperatures are going down, humidity is coming up, and wind is a little bit lighter in the evening.”

The digital messaging also allows the department to use a more immediate, targeted approach to deliver messages to residents of areas whose fire risk is increasing.

“Frankly, I think we’re all used to driving by signs every day, and they may cease to get our attention as they used to,” said Greg Bilyeu, director of communications at the department. “Also, there’s often local burn bans that are put into effect by the localities. Those can change on a dime. We can share that via NextDoor and really push that right into the community that we need to.”

Fires have consumed nearly 20,000 acres in Va. this spring. That could be good for the environment.

The change comes ahead of the fall fire season Oct. 15 to Nov. 30, and as Virginia encounters wildfires that ravage a greater number of acres. Nearly 20,000 acres went up in a blaze this spring in Virginia, while last fall saw 12,500 acres burned. Historically, the annual average of Virginia acres burned by wildfire had been about 9,500.

“That is the challenge we’re facing,” Farrell said. “There are more people in the way of these fires than ever before,” Farrell said.

Although they are a destructive and captivating force, forest management officials have said the blazes in Virginia’s wetter climate have not been as detrimental as those in western and northern parts of the continent this year and last year.

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The department will keep taking the signs down but it may be a while before they can get them all.

“I will not be surprised that we’ll continue to find signs here and there around the state that haven’t been taken down yet,” Farrell said during a phone interview, as he gazed at one of the signs. “I was a forester for seven years, so I spent my time switching signs. I have a nostalgic connection to these signs as well.”

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