Rock Hill, SC Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Sec. " The three exceptions are cooking fires that create no smoke violation or nuisance, small recreational fires such as campfires under the same no-nuisance standard, and a 55-gallon-or-smaller drum warming fire burning only scraps or ordinary wood on a construction site. Anything else, including burning yard debris, leaves or trash in the open, falls outside those exceptions and is banned. A related section, Sec. 16-6, separately makes it unlawful to burn trash, paper, waste or other flammable materials "without first having obtained permission to do so from the chief of the fire department," so even the narrower category of trash burning is not simply left to a resident's discretion; the fire chief must sign off first.

Sec. 16-6 exempts only "individual or neighborhood cookouts" from that permission requirement, which lines up with the cooking-fire exception in Sec. 16-7. Neither section gives the city council or fire chief express standing authority in the text to declare a temporary citywide burn ban beyond this permanent baseline prohibition; the ban itself is the standing rule, not a discretionary order the chief issues case by case.