In regard to a recent complaint involving a fallen sky lantern that landed on top of an apartment building, City Commissioners said they would look into establishing an ordinance that would prevent residents from lighting them.
During Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, Battalion Chief Steve Leonard said OFD responded to a recent complaint regarding the remnants of a sky lantern on and around some apartment buildings in the city. The resident was concerned about the possibility of those remnants causing a fire, Leonard said.
The sky lanterns were “clearly a fire hazard” for cities like Owensboro, Leonard said.
“Once you send a flaming object aloft with no control over its direction — at some point, they’re going to have to descend,” he said. “Ideally, they burn out and descend, but our experience is, they don’t often do that.”
Leonard said OFD had seen most sky lanterns burn out “just enough to drop down” while they were still aflame. Some of them have become completely consumed by fire as they’ve fallen to the ground, he said.
“At that point, they drop very rapidly,” he said. “Across the country, we’ve seen a lot of cities ban these for obvious reasons. If you can’t control a flaming device that floats across your city and have no control where it lands, that’s not a good thing for fire safety in our community.”
Leonard said the issue could be dealt with very easily by passing an ordinance that bans sky lanterns.
In November, former Fire Chief Steve Mitchell approached City Commissioners about placing a ban on sky lanterns. That ordinance fell through after the Daviess County Fire Department expressed no interest in joining the City for a joint ordinance.
The ordinance would be enforced through the Owensboro Police Department, Leonard said. It would be enforced similarly to the City’s fireworks ordinance.
“With an ordinance and a law in place, that would hold people accountable and responsible if they caused a fire or worse,” he said. “Our experience is, there’s plenty of people who witness these things. There’s no hiding anything now. People see everything these days.”
Mayor Tom Watson said the board of commissioners were taking the complaint seriously and would look into the possibility of establishing an ordinance.
“We’ll go back to Fiscal Court and see if they’re interested in entering into a joint agreement to do away with these flying lanterns, and we’ll see if we can help you guys out a little bit,” he said.
