Due to the rain and harvest finishing up, the State Fire Marshall’s Office is lifting the open burn ban for Greene County effective today.

The county-wide burn ban has been in effect since September 9th because of the extremely dry conditions and the heavy farm equipment out on the fields.

Earlier this month, there were eight other counties in Iowa who had a burn ban in place, but now only Audubon County remains with an open burn ban.

However, Sheriff Steve Haupert reminds those who are planning on doing a large-scale field burn or brush burn must still call into the Law Enforcement Center in Jefferson to avoid getting a citation and possibly a fine.

The burn ban can only be lifted by the agency that established it and in this case it was from the request of Dennis Morlan, the county coordinator for emergency management and homeland security.