Following a late winter and early spring filled with grass fires, the Douglas County Commission on Wednesday will tweak the county’s open burning restrictions for rural areas.

Teri Smith, Douglas County Emergency Management director, said the new language on restricting open burning in the rural areas simplifies the original resolution adopted in 2015.

The new language will continue to ban opening burning on days in which the National Weather Service in Topeka lists the rangeland fire index as very high, extreme or red flag. It does away with wind speeds as a stand-alone criteria for prohibiting burning. Instead, the new language gives County Administrator Craig Weinaug or a designee the authority to prohibit burning based on local conditions on those days with low, moderate or high indexes when fires are normally permitted. Specifically, the county administrator could forbid burning when sustained wind speeds of 20 mph are forecast for moderate-risk days or 15 mph were forecast for high-risk days.

The new language also allows the county administrator to ban open burning on any day there are resource limitations or dry conditions make local burning dangerous.

Taken off the County Commission’s agenda Monday with the recent rains was a proposed seven-day ban of open burning.

Commissioners will return for a 6 p.m. session Wednesday to consider two planning and zoning matters. The first request on the agenda is for a conditional use permit for a borrow pit southwest of the North 1300 Road and East 1750 Road intersection. Last year, commissioners approved a temporary permit that allowed the removal of earth from the site for construction purposes on the South Lawrence Trafficway. The conditional use permit would allow the continued use of the barrow pit for 10 years with reviews every five years. The request includes a reclamation plan.

Commissioners also will consider a site plan to convert a residence at 1149 East 1500 Road to a church.

The Douglas County Commission meets at 4 p.m. Wednesdays at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. To view the complete agenda, visit douglascountyks.org.