Small recreational cooking and warming fires are generally allowed, but burning trash or yard waste is prohibited under state open-burning rules. The Hawai'i Fire Department may ban all open fires during dry, windy, high-wildfire-risk conditions.
A contained recreational or cooking fire, such as an imu, small campfire, or grill, is treated differently from open burning of refuse. Burning household trash, green waste, or land-clearing debris in the backyard is prohibited under HAR 11-60.1 open-burning rules, with narrow exceptions for cooking and permitted agricultural burning. The Hawai'i State Fire Code lets the fire department (AHJ) prohibit open, recreational, and cooking fires whenever weather or fuel conditions make them hazardous. Given the Big Island's severe leeward and Kona wildfire risk, residents should never leave a fire unattended and should keep water or an extinguisher nearby.
Burning prohibited materials is enforced by DOH Clean Air Branch; an unsafe or unattended fire, or one lit during a fire-dept restriction, can be ordered extinguished and cited under the State Fire Code, with liability for any escaped fire.
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See how Hawaii County's backyard fires rules stack up against other locations.
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