Wake County, NC Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Wake County has not adopted a separate county-level open-burning ordinance. Outdoor burning in unincorporated Wake County is governed by two parallel state regimes that apply directly without county action.

First, the NC Forest Service permit regime sits in N.C. General Statutes Chapter 106, Article 78 (sections 106-940 through 106-950). The statute splits North Carolina counties into two tiers. G.S. 106-942 lists 19 designated "high hazard" counties (mostly mountain and coastal counties such as Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania, and Yancey) where a Forest Service permit is required at all times for any fire in woodland or within 500 feet of woodland. Wake County is NOT on that list, so it falls under the lower-tier rule of G.S. 106-943: a permit is required for any fire in woodland or within 500 feet of woodland, but only between the hours of midnight and 4:00 PM. Permits are issued by the local Wake County Ranger's office (NC Forest Service District 3) and most commonly online through the NC Forest Service's burn-permit application at apps.ncagr.gov/burnpermits/.

Second, the NC Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Air Quality regulates what may actually be burned under 15A NCAC 02D .1903 (Permissible Open Burning Without an Air Quality Permit). Rule .1903 lists the five categories of allowable open burning — chiefly residential leaf and yard-debris fires, land-clearing burns on the property where the material originated, campfires and outdoor cooking, ceremonial fires, and certain agricultural and fire-training fires — and imposes baseline conditions that apply across Wake County: (a) the material must be wood, leaves, branches, or other vegetation grown on the property; (b) no public pickup of yard waste must be available; (c) burning must occur between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM, with no new material added after 6:00 PM; (d) for land-clearing burns, the fire must be at least 500 feet from any occupied structure not on the burning property and at least 250 feet from any public road when prevailing winds blow toward the road; and (e) burning is prohibited on any day forecast as Code Orange, Red, or Purple by the NC Forecast Center. Burning of any non-vegetative material — trash, plastic, rubber, treated or painted wood, asphalt shingles, insulation, tires, building or demolition debris — is prohibited statewide year-round under Rule .1903.

The Commissioner of Agriculture may, under G.S. 106-944, suspend all open burning in Wake County during hazardous fire-danger or air-pollution episodes. Statewide bans were issued multiple times in 2025–2026 (the most recent was lifted on May 8, 2026). Individual incorporated municipalities within Wake County — Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Wake Forest, Garner, Holly Springs, Knightdale, Wendell, Zebulon, Fuquay-Varina, Morrisville, and Rolesville — may impose stricter local burn bans that override the permissive state rule.