Rapides Parish, LA Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Chapter 25 was created by a July 8, 2024 ordinance and opens with a flat ban: Sec. 25-1 makes it unlawful to "cause or allow the outdoor burning of waste material or other combustible material on any property owned by him or under his control within unincorporated areas of Rapides Parish" except as Sec. 25-2 allows. Sec. 25-2 lists eleven carve-outs, each conditioned on creating no public nuisance and complying with other applicable law, including air-control regulations: attended yard-waste fires by a property owner, cooking fires, attended recreational or ceremonial campfires, forest-management burns approved by the Louisiana Forestry Commission, agricultural-management burns approved by the state Department of Agriculture, game-management burns in rural parks, small tradesman fires tied to utility repair work, open-flame tools like welding torches, firefighter training burns, and petroleum-industry burns of waste hydrocarbons.

Land-clearing and right-of-way burns carry the strictest conditions: prevailing winds must blow away from any city or town, the burn must sit at least 100 feet from any dwelling other than one on the burn property, no rubber or asphaltic material may be burned, burning is limited to the hours between legal sunrise and legal sunset, and it can't create a traffic hazard under Sec. 25-3, which separately bans smoke that crosses a public road and impairs visibility. Sec. 25-4 makes any violation a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine, 60 days in jail, or both, and lets a fire department extinguish a violating fire.

Sec. 25-5 additionally lets the police jury president impose drought-driven burn restrictions, ratified by the full police jury, published in the parish's official journal, and effective for up to 30 days at a time; any state fire marshal burn ban automatically supersedes the parish's own rule.