Supervisor Rick Randolph said the county needed a process where a resident would apply for a permit and would also have to receive authorization.

“I think there should be a final sign-off by somebody in the fire marshal’s office that says, ‘Yes, you’re authorized to burn today,’ because you’ve looked to know what the wind speeds are, you know about the ... how dry the burn conditions are and you can go ahead and authorize someone to burn,” he said.

If not, he said, residents should only be allowed to burn on weekdays so that they’re assured fire personnel will be available.

Palmer said she did not want to require permits and that the majority of the people are “good actors.”

“We understand that there’s a whole lot of stupid out there, there really is, but the majority of the people are intelligent, they think through this, they don’t want their house to burn down, they don’t want their woods to burn down,” she said. “I just think that this is too cumbersome for somebody who has a pile of leaves and they want to burn a pile of leaves.”

Supervisor Ann H. Mallek said the board should consider who it is “being friendly to.”