Richland, WA Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

RMC § 15.05.030(B) draws a bright line for private burning in Richland: burning wastepaper, boxes, rubbish and debris at a residence is prohibited outright, with no permit path back to it. The only material Richland allows a resident to burn at all is yard debris, brush, grass, leaves, weeds and cuttings from trees, lawns, shrubs and gardens, and even that is authorized only to the extent the Benton Clean Air Agency's rules allow it, so a countywide burn ban imposed by that regional agency overrides any local allowance.

The same section, RMC § 15.05.030, separately criminalizes illegal dumping as a misdemeanor prosecutable under RMC § 9.12.055 and bars unlawful accumulation of refuse under Chapter 10.04 RMC, showing the city treats unauthorized burning as part of the same prohibited-acts framework as illegal disposal. Violations of the prohibited acts in RMC § 15.05.030 that are not otherwise assigned a specific penalty fall under the catch-all in subsection (G): a civil infraction carrying the penalty set in RMC § 10.02.050(E). Subsection (H) then makes a continuing violation, such as an ongoing pile of illegally burned or accumulated waste, a separate offense for each day it persists, so an unresolved backyard burn pile can generate a new civil infraction daily until it is cleared.