Houston County, GA Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

Houston County adopted Georgia's open-burning framework into Chapter 32, Article II of its Code under a 1995 ordinance. Section 32-23(1) lists categories of burning the state Environmental Protection Division does not prohibit, and paragraphs (d) through (f) cover warming fires, flame-making tools, cooking and recreational fires. to keep warm for outside working" but bars burning manmade materials or treated wood that produces dense smoke. " These same recreational and cooking-fire uses are also carved out of the county's May 1 to September 30 seasonal open-burning ban under section 32-23(3), so a backyard cooking or warming fire is not swept up in that broader prohibition the way a debris or land-clearing burn would be.

None of these provisions specifies a minimum distance from a structure or property line for a fire pit or chiminea; the only numeric setback anywhere in the chapter, 1,000 feet from an occupied dwelling, applies solely to land-clearing debris burns under section 32-23(1)(k), a different activity entirely. A fire that produces manmade-material smoke, or one left unsupervised, can still be cited as an illegal or hazardous burn under the county's separate burning regulations in section 32-26, which require any permitted fire to be watched at all times.