Southfield, MI Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Sec. 2.9 of the Southfield City Code lists open burning among the acts expressly prohibited under Chapter 17, the same chapter that governs garbage and rubbish generally. The section bars burning garbage in an open-air incinerator outright, bars burning leaves, grass or rubbish on any paved or bituminous-surfaced street, and bars burning any type of refuse where the smoke, ashes or odor it produces creates a nuisance to the public or to a neighbor. Even where a fire is otherwise allowed, the code sets a minimum distance from anything flammable: rubbish cannot be burned closer than fifteen feet to a building, and a rubbish fire can never be left unattended once lit.

The same section separately bars burying garbage where it will draw rats or other animals, treating uncontrolled disposal of waste, whether by fire or by burial, as a single family of prohibited acts. Enforcement runs alongside the chapter's litter and nuisance provisions: Sec. 2.9 cross-references the city's general nuisance declaration for rubbish likely to attract rodents or vermin at Sec. 9.3, littering of public and private property at Sec. 9.133, and the separate fire prevention regulations that begin at Sec. 9.181. Southfield's fire department and the Department of Public Works share the practical burden of responding to an open fire report, since the same act, burning household rubbish, can simultaneously violate the Chapter 17 burning prohibition and trigger the fire code.