Roanoke, VA Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

City Code § 12-19 amends the Virginia Statewide Fire Prevention Code's open burning section, 307.1.1, to add a list of exceptions to the general rule against open fire outside a building. The third exception is for recreational fires, allowed 'in accordance with the restrictions in Section 307.4.2 provided no smoke hazard or other nuisance is created.' That means a backyard fire pit, chiminea or similar recreational fire is not treated as prohibited open burning in Roanoke, but it is not unconditional either: the fire still has to satisfy the separate location, size, duration and fuel requirements the state fire code sets out in Section 307.4.2, and it still cannot create a smoke hazard or other nuisance for neighbors.

Roanoke's local ordinance does not restate the numeric standards from Section 307.4.2 itself; those distance-from-structures, pile-size and attendance requirements come from the Virginia Statewide Fire Prevention Code as adopted, referenced but not reproduced in the city's local amendments. What the city ordinance does add is the nuisance backstop: even a recreational fire that meets the state's technical requirements can still be shut down if it produces smoke that becomes a nuisance, and the ordinance places enforcement with the fire official, the fire marshal of the fire prevention division under § 105.1.4, working alongside the Roanoke Fire-EMS Department. Because a recreational fire is only excepted from the open burning ban rather than a separately permitted activity, no fire-pit permit fee applies under this exception, unlike the § 307.2 permit required for bonfires, campfires or land-management burns.