Anchorage, AK Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

AMC 15.30.080 exempts recreational and cooking fires from the municipality's open-burning ban: fires for pleasure, religious, ceremonial, cooking, or like social purposes are allowed outright, no permit required. The chapter's definitions section separately names "back yard fire pits" and barbecuing as permitted open-burning activities that don't count as regulated stationary sources. No size, distance-from-structures, or hour restriction is written into the ordinance itself for these fires (numeric limits apply only to fire-chief-authorized training burns). The tradeoff is discretion: the director can suspend or prohibit all open burning across the municipality at any time for air-quality reasons, and the fire chief can do the same for fire-safety reasons, such as during dry, high-wind conditions.