Franklin, TN Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

Title 13 (Property Maintenance Regulations), Chapter 1 (Miscellaneous) of the Franklin Municipal Code includes the City's property-maintenance and nuisance-vegetation rules administered by Code Enforcement. Under the standard MTAS-format ordinance adopted at Title 13, every owner or tenant of property must periodically cut the grass and other vegetation commonly recognized as weeds, and an owner in violation is required to remedy the condition within 10 days of notice (20 days for a carrier engaged in transportation of property); if the owner fails to act, the City may abate the nuisance and recover the cost as a lien against the property. Open burning of brush, yard waste, and trash is prohibited inside Franklin city limits per the Franklin Fire Marshal's Office; the City instead provides free weekly curbside collection of yard waste through Sanitation and Environmental Services / Solid Waste Department (615-794-1516). Residents may place grass clippings and small ground waste at the curb in brown biodegradable paper bags, and larger items (limbs, large clippings) loose at the curb. Franklin sits in Middle Tennessee's Central Basin and Highland Rim transition; while Williamson County is not within a federally mapped Wildland-Urban Interface zone, overgrown brush adjacent to structures still presents a property-maintenance violation and fire-spread risk. The Tennessee Division of Forestry's statewide outdoor-burning permit season runs October 15 through May 15 under TCA 68-102 and Rule 0080-03-04, but inside Franklin city limits the local prohibition on brush burning supersedes that state permit option.