Kankakee County, IL Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Section 46-27 of the Kankakee County Code prohibits open burning countywide except where the code carves out a specific exemption, and it separately bans burning refuse in any chamber not designed for that class of waste. The listed exemptions cover agricultural waste, domicile waste, landscape waste, fire-suppression burns, campfires and cooking fires, waste-gas flares at refineries, and small welding or torch flames. Agricultural waste may be burned only on the premises where it was generated, away from restricted areas, when weather will disperse the smoke, when there is no economically reasonable disposal alternative, and only more than 1,000 feet from residential or populated areas.

Landscape waste (grass, leaves, brush, tree limbs) carries the most detailed conditions: it must be generated on-site, only dry material may be burned, a competent person must attend the fire at all times, and it cannot be set within 1,000 feet of a municipality that itself bans landscape burning. The fire location must sit at least 50 feet from any neighboring structure, with water on hand to extinguish it, and at least 50 feet from any property line. , seven days a week. None of these exemptions apply if the burn actually causes air pollution under the Illinois Environmental Protection Act, and the section does not override any stricter local restriction. Enforcement runs through the county health authority or the chairman's designee under Article II of Chapter 46.