Ask Mr. Answer Person: Do citizens need to report to officials when they do a "controlled burn?"

A decorahnews.com reader e-mails: "Recently the Decorah Fire Department was paged to go out to Freeport for a fire. It ended up being a "controlled burn." Is there any kind of a city or county ordinance that at ANYTIME ANYBODY is going to do such a burn they HAVE to let the fire department and law enforcement know ahead of time that they will be starting this fire so time is not wasted as it was by the fire department, city and county law enforcement officers and ambulance that were all sent out because they didn't know if there were people in the building on fire?

Mr. Answer Person says: I used to live in Wisconsin, where such permits were required. In checking with both the City of Decorah and Winneshiek County, neither one require getting a permit, except in the case of prairie burns in the City of Decorah. City and county officials say sometimes people will call them informally to give them notice of a controlled burn, but there's no requirement to do so. Your idea does seem like it would save time and money for our tax-supported emergency services.