POTTER COUNTY -- Potter County commissioners voted 5-0 to extend the county burn ban Monday following the recommendation of the Potter County fire chief.

Richard Lake pointed out to the court although Amarillo has seen a lot of rain the last couple of weeks, some areas in the county did not receive as much moisture as others.

"There's areas in the county that have received significant rainfall over the last month or so, and there's other parts of the county that haven't received hardly any to very limited rainfall that are very dry and susceptible to wildfire."

The ban was extended for 90 days.  According to Lake, the ban will be reviewed every two weeks.  If the county receives a great amount of rainfall, it is possible the ban could be lifted.  Until that time, fireworks and certain types of burning are out of the question.

"You cannot burn any debris, any pits, any trash piles, anything like that," Lake said.  "What we have done is modified the burn ban to allow burning of household trash in a barrel with a screen over it.  Debris piles, junk, tree limbs and things like that- they still cannot be burned."

Warming fires such as campfires can be burned as long as they in metal containers and have screens over the top. 

 Lake added even though the ban is in effect many people continue burning anyway, adding to the risk of more wildfires- some of which firefighters have recently had to battle.

Randall County lifted its burn ban on May 15.  For information on other Texas county burn bans, go to http://tfsfrp.tamu.edu/wildfires/decban.png.