Rohnert Park, CA Fire Regulations: Fire Pits & Backyard Fires (2026)

Chapter 8.20, Open Outdoor Fires, starts from a blanket rule: RPMC § 8.20.010 makes it unlawful for any person to ignite, permit, or maintain an open outdoor fire within the city except as provided in this chapter. Section 8.20.020(B) defines an open outdoor fire broadly as any outdoor combustion of combustible material that is not enclosed and whose smoke is not vented through a flue, meaning even a simple backyard fire pit fits the definition unless an exception applies.

Section 8.20.030 lists those exceptions, and the first one covers recreational and cooking use: subsection (A) excepts fires used only for cooking of food for human beings or for recreational purposes. That single line is what actually authorizes a backyard fire pit, campfire-style burn, or cookout fire in Rohnert Park; the chapter does not add a minimum setback distance, container requirement, or burn-time window for that particular exception the way it does for agricultural and industrial fires listed later in the same section. Other exceptions in § 8.20.030 cover fires set by public officials for weed abatement or firefighter training, agricultural burns permitted by the county agricultural commissioner, and safety flares, each with its own conditions such as advance notice to the air pollution control officer.

Because a recreational or cooking fire is exempt from the chapter, it is not separately regulated here for size, distance from structures or hours, but it remains subject to nuisance and fire-hazard limits elsewhere in the code and to the fire chief's general authority. Anyone who violates the chapter, for example by burning outside an exception, faces the same misdemeanor or infraction penalties under § 8.20.040, up to $500 and six months in jail for a misdemeanor.