Outdoor burning rules in San Mateo County, CA — also called the burn ban, open burning, or fire restriction ordinance — set when you can burn yard waste, debris, or run a recreational fire.
All backyard burning is prohibited throughout San Mateo County. Open burning is regulated by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and requires a CAL FIRE burn permit, and may only occur on declared permissive burn days. Most residential yard-waste burning is illegal; use green-waste collection instead.
Open burning in San Mateo County is jointly regulated by CAL FIRE / San Mateo County Fire and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). According to the county fire department, all backyard burning is prohibited throughout San Mateo County. Any allowed open burning requires a CAL FIRE burn permit (applied for online at burnpermits.fire.ca.gov or through the local fire department / battalion chief) and is limited to narrow categories such as agricultural or natural-resource-management burning. Residents must also verify that it is a permissive (open) burn day with no fire restrictions before burning; the 24-hour burn-status hotline is (800) 792-0787. Open burning is only allowed when weather conditions favor smoke dispersion and air pollution is not forecast to be high. During wildfire season, CAL FIRE periodically suspends all outdoor residential burning in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties; for example, an all-outdoor-burning suspension was lifted only in September 2021 after the prior season's restrictions. Separately, BAAQMD's wood-burning rule (Regulation 6, Rule 3) bans burning wood, manufactured logs, pellets, garbage, and toxic materials on Spare the Air Alert days year-round. Because routine residential yard-waste and trash burning is not a permitted category in this urbanized air basin, residents should dispose of yard waste through curbside green-waste/organics collection rather than burning.
Burning without a required CAL FIRE permit, or on a non-burn day, violates the California Fire Code and BAAQMD open-burning rules. Burning garbage, plastics, and toxic materials is banned at all times under BAAQMD Regulation 6, Rule 3. Air-district open-burning violations are enforced under California Health & Safety Code section 42400. Check restrictions on the burn-status hotline (800) 792-0787 before any burn, and report illegal burning to the San Mateo County Fire Marshal at (650) 573-3846 or to BAAQMD.
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