El Paso, TX Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

060(A) states the general rule flatly: no person may cause, suffer, allow, or permit outdoor burning anywhere in the city except as the subchapter or state law allows. The single carved-out exception covers disposal fires of trees, brush, grass, leaves, branch trimmings or other plant growth at Rio Bosque Park (10719 Socorro Road), and only when generated from right-of-way maintenance, land clearing, or canal maintenance with no practical alternative. To use it, an applicant files an open-burning permit with the fire official at least ten days ahead; the fire official forwards it to the director of environmental services, who must approve or deny within five working days.

Denial is mandatory during an active El Paso County burn ban set by the Texas Interagency Coordination Center, if the material isn't qualifying plant growth, or if a structure with sensitive receptors sits within three hundred feet without the owner's written approval. Approved burns still require current fire-code compliance, a pre-burn inspection by the El Paso Fire Department's Fire Prevention Division, and payment of permit and fire-watch fees. Weather rules are strict: burning can't start before one hour after sunrise or continue past one hour before sunset, wind must run six to twenty-three miles per hour, and burning is barred during actual or predicted low-level temperature inversions.

060(B)(1)(j) separately bans burning electrical insulation, treated lumber, plastics, non-wood construction/demolition debris, heavy oils, asphaltic materials, explosive materials, chemical waste, or rubber-containing items regardless of any permit.