Doña Ana County, NM Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

Section 195-3A(9) of the Fire Code, which locally amends International Fire Code § 105.6.32, closes its open-burning rule with a single-line carve-out reading, in full: 'Exceptions: Recreational fires and open burning of vegetative materials.' That exception sits directly after Subsection D, which otherwise requires anyone burning outdoors to call the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority's nonemergency line, (575) 526-0795, before starting a fire, and again when it begins and ends, to confirm burning is authorized that day. Recreational fires, read against that structure, don't trigger that call-in requirement the way a debris pile or brush burn does.

The county code doesn't spell out a separate size, fuel, or setback standard written specifically for backyard fire pits, so the general open-burning provisions in the same section supply the closest available benchmarks: Subsection A calls for burning to sit no less than 300 feet from any structure with an extinguishing agent on hand, and Subsection B bars burning trash, tires, plastics, or other paper products, prohibits burning after dark, and limits any burn to the window between one hour after sunrise and one hour before sunset. Because the code doesn't carve recreational fires out of those material and timing restrictions, only out of the Subsection D dispatch-notification duty, a resident lighting a fire pit should still expect the same hour and prohibited-materials rules to apply, just without having to phone MVRDA first.