Casper, WY Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

Casper Municipal Code § 8.44.035(C) requires "every owner of any lot, or parcel of ground in the city, to mow and maintain a strip for a fire break between their private property and the native areas adjoining the property." The width of that fire break is not fixed by ordinance; instead the city manager or a designated representative sets it based on "the height, type and amount of growth, wind and geographical conditions, and type of exposure threatened," so the required clearance scales with the actual fire risk on each parcel rather than a flat citywide number.

The fire break duty coexists with a broader exemption in the same section: subsection (A) frees native areas and their natural vegetation from the general weed removal, dandelion removal and height limitation rules elsewhere in Chapter 8.44, and subsection (B) requires drainageways (other than Garden Creek and the North Platte River) to be mowed from the top of the bank to the drainageway's perimeter, though woody plants there are exempt and a code enforcement officer can waive mowing for erosion or groundcover reasons. Once a fire-break notice is served, § 8.44.035(C) keeps the owner responsible for maintaining the strip for the rest of the calendar year without renotification, and any lapse after the initial notice is treated as a fresh violation.

Enforcement runs through § 8.44.050: the city manager or agent gives written notice, may issue a citation to municipal court for noncompliance, or may authorize the city to abate the condition itself. Because Chapter 8.44 is not on the jail-eligible list in § 1.28.010(C), a fire-break violation is punished under the general misdemeanor fine track: up to $750 plus no more than $10 in court costs, and it is also declared a public nuisance under § 8.44.040(A).