A lack of rural awareness about air quality restrictions on outdoor burning, as opposed to fire bans and restrictions put in place by local authorities, has led the Otago Regional Council to increase its education and enforcement.
While most people were aware they needed permission from city or district councils to burn outdoors, they did not think of regional council air quality burning restrictions, so changing that would be a challenge for the regional council, chairman Stephen Woodhead said.
"We need to up our education process," he said.
The comments were made at a regulatory committee meeting yesterday, where a new tool to assist staff in assessing whether or not enforcement action was needed after an outdoor fire, was presented.
Resource management director Selva Selvarajah said the council received, from inner city and rural areas, a substantial number of complaints on outdoor burning, including 11 in the eight weeks to February 7.
A contractor dealt with the Dunedin and Mosgiel complaints by issuing $300 infringement notices but, due to the complexity of rules dealing with outdoor burnings in suburban or rural areas, these were not easy to enforce, he said.
Residents of airzone 3, which covered rural Otago, were aware of fire restrictions but were either unaware of, or ignored, regional council rules.
"Enforcement of such activities is on the rise because of increasing outdoor burning incidents associated with farm or lifestyle blocks. It is vital that staff consistently enforce the outdoor burning rules."
Cr Duncan Butcher said a greater understanding of the rules was needed in the farming and orcharding industries.
Cr Louise Croot said the council had to explain to people that territorial local authority permission to burn, did not deal with the effects of the burning.
The committee agreed that staff should use the new tool when dealing with burning complaints and that the council should undertake more education about the rules in airzone 2 (which includes Dunedin and Mosgiel) and airzone 3.
