ST. LOUIS — Leaf clean-up and removal is a common chore right now as trees are quickly dropping their leaves, but the dry conditions could cause problems.
There are a few options when it comes to getting rid of all the leaves in our yards but with the dry conditions we’ve been facing this fall, we have high fire danger so some options are much better than others.
Burning yard waste in those municipalities that allow it could result in a call to the fire department.
“Because the chance of it getting out of control and going to burn up some other structure you don’t want burned or getting potentially going toward a house or a structure. We don’t recommend you burning at this time right now,” said William Stamberger, Deputy Chief and Public Information Officer, Eureka Fire Protection District.
Eureka resident Jan Reis has the right idea. She says she’s been cleaning up leaves for a month.
“Actually we have compost in the back. So we blow, then we mow them, we mulch them. We put them in the compost. Repeat, repeat, repeat,” Reis said.
You can also get with your local trash disposal service or your local municipality may have leaf litter pickups.
“Pick up the leaves at the street. Eureka doesn’t happen to be one of the municipalities that does that,” Reis said. “Ballwin, Ellisville, both pick up at the curb.”
And while there are a lot of leaves on the ground, there are still a lot left to fall which will keep us busy in the coming weeks.
Even if we get some rain, burning still isn’t the best option.
“The problem is is this time of year because all of the grasses have gone to dormant and everything is fallen, the trees are dormant. You still have a low humidity on some of those things. Now granted if the ground is wetter then it’s a lot less chance of it spreading. But I would be cautious unless we’ve had a lot of rain,” said Stamberger.
Stamberger says to check with your local jurisdiction before you try to do any authorized open burns. St. Louis County has more restrictions than Jefferson County and each municipality also has their own restrictions. He says to check your municipality’s website which will let you know what you can do and how long you can do it for.
