Gaston County, NC Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Gaston County's solid waste ordinance, Chapter 7 of the county code, bans burning garbage or refuse in the open air outright. Sec. 7-3(n) states plainly that open burning of solid waste is prohibited, immediately followed by a parallel ban on open dumping in Sec. 7-3(o). The chapter's definitions section, Sec. 7-1, defines open burning as any fire whose combustion products are emitted directly into the outdoor atmosphere rather than through a stack, chimney, incinerator, or similar device, so an uncontained backyard trash fire falls squarely within the ban.

The prohibition sits inside the broader storage-and-disposal section, Sec. 7-3, which requires every owner, occupant, tenant, or lessee to keep solid waste off their property except when stored or disposed of by the methods the chapter allows in Sec. 7-3(h), a sanitary landfill approved by the state Division of Solid Waste Management, a permitted incinerator, or another approved reclamation or recycling method, so burning trash instead of setting it out for collection is treated as an unauthorized disposal method. Chapter 7 traces to Res. No. 2003-353, adopted October 30, 2003, with the dedicated enforcement mechanism for Sec. 7-3 added by Res. No. 2017-254 and updated by Res. No. 2021-016.