Blaine, MN Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

Blaine treats a backyard recreational or camp fire as a narrow, permit-free exception carved out of the open burning article in Chapter 38. Blaine City Code § 38-54 states plainly that a permit is not required for any fire that meets the recreational/camp fire definition in § 38-52, but that definition does the real regulating. The fire has to be built inside a recreational fire site: a ring no more than three feet in diameter, fully enclosed by noncombustible, non-smoke-producing material such as natural rock, cement, brick, tile, block or ferrous metal, and burning barrels do not qualify as that site.

The site itself cannot sit closer than 25 feet to any structure or combustible material. Only dry, clean wood may be burned, the fire must produce little detectable smoke, odor, or soot beyond the property line, an adult has to tend it the entire time it burns, it is limited to recreational, ceremonial, or social food-preparation use, it must be fully extinguished before anyone leaves, and only one recreational fire is allowed on a property at a time. Weather, neighbors, and air quality all factor in: under § 38-61, no recreational fire is permitted once the city or the Minnesota DNR has declared a burning ban, or once the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has issued an air quality alert. The rules trace to Spring Lake Park/Blaine/Mounds View Fire Department Regulation 3-95, the department that also enforces this chapter for the city.