Eagan, MN Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Eagan City Code § 10.40, Subd. 7 covers any fire that does not meet the recreational fire requirements elsewhere in the section, such as burning brush piles, disposing of diseased trees, or clearing vegetation for habitat management, and requires an open burn permit before that fire is started. The permit application goes to the city fire chief, fire marshal, fire inspector, or fire official on a Minnesota DNR form, and the site gets a preliminary inspection to locate the burn, flag special conditions, and review fire safety before approval.

A minimum of five acres of land is required to qualify, and the burn itself must be at least 300 feet from all combustible materials like dwellings and structures. The permit holder must stay at the site the entire time the fire burns, keep communication and fire suppression equipment on hand under the site's safety plan, and completely extinguish the fire before leaving; no fire may be left to smolder unattended. Permits are limited to specific purposes: eliminating a health hazard that cannot be abated another way, thawing ground for utility work, clearing vegetative material for forest, prairie, or wildlife habitat management, land and right-of-way maintenance where chipping or composting is not practical, disposing of diseased trees or nursery stock on site, and MPCA-permitted fire training.

No permit will issue while the DNR has declared a burning ban or the MPCA has issued an Air Quality Alert, and the fire chief may separately declare a citywide burning ban of up to 30 days under Subd. 8 that suspends both open burning and recreational fire permits.