Fauquier County, VA Fire Regulations: Fireworks (2026)

Section 16-7(b) makes it unlawful for any person to use, discharge or possess fireworks, firecrackers, explosives or rockets of any kind in a county park, carving out only one exception: a properly supervised parks and recreation department-sponsored activity conducted in designated areas at designated times. The provision sits in the same section as the chapter's ban on BB guns, air guns, slingshots and bows in § 16-7(a) and its three-inch knife-blade limit in § 16-7(c), all adopted originally by Ord. No. 99-1 in 1999 and later amended through Ord.

No. 11-4 in 2011. A footnote to § 16-7 flags that the General Assembly's 2020 amendment to Code of Virginia § 15.2-915 stripped counties of authority to regulate firearms beyond what state law expressly authorizes, but that preemption note addresses only the firearms half of the section, not the separate fireworks ban in subsection (b). Because this is a parks-specific rule rather than a county-wide fireworks ordinance, it governs conduct on parks and recreation department property; the code contains no other fireworks provision reaching private property elsewhere in unincorporated Fauquier County. The director of parks and recreation and law enforcement officers patrolling park grounds enforce the ban.