West Hartford, CT Fire Regulations: Outdoor Burning (2026)

Chapter 64, Burning, Outdoor, originated as Section 14-5 of the 1972 Code and was last amended October 7, 2019. Its single operative section, § 64-1, makes it a violation for any person to kindle, or to authorize another person to kindle, a fire in the open air anywhere within the limits of the Town of West Hartford without first obtaining permission from the Chief of the Fire Department, or the Chief's deputy, specifying when and where the fire may be kindled. The Fire Department therefore controls open burning town-wide through a case-by-case permission process rather than a blanket seasonal or calendar-based ban, and the chief or deputy sets the actual conditions of when and where a given fire can occur.

The chapter carves out one express exception: no permit is required to kindle a fire in a fireplace, container or cooking apparatus made of noncombustible material, covering ordinary backyard fire pits, grills and chimineas rather than unconfined brush, leaf or debris burning. Anyone who kindles or authorizes an open-air fire without first securing that Fire Department permission is punished as provided in § 1-8, the Town's general penalty section covering ordinances that do not set their own specific fine. Because the ordinance folds the burning restriction and its penalty into one short section, there is no separate schedule of burn hours, wind or drought restrictions printed in the Town Code itself; those operational conditions are left to the terms the Fire Chief attaches to each individual permission granted.