Nashua, NH Fire Regulations: Wildfire Zones (2026)

Nashua sits in the lower Merrimack River valley in southern New Hampshire and is dominated by built-out residential, commercial, and industrial neighborhoods rather than continuous forest. The City has no formal wildland-urban interface (WUI) hazard map and no stand-alone wildfire-zone ordinance, and New Hampshire has not adopted a statewide WUI building-code overlay comparable to California's Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Wildfire authority over Nashua comes from: (1) RSA Chapter 227-L (Woodland Fire Control), under which the NH Division of Forests and Lands (Department of Natural and Cultural Resources) coordinates forest-fire suppression and appoints town forest fire wardens; the Nashua Fire Chief serves as the City Forest Fire Warden with statutory authority under RSA 227-L:5 to act on forest fires inside and adjacent to city limits. (2) RSA 227-L:17 (Permits; Damages; Penalties), which requires a written forest-fire-warden permit for outdoor burning except when the ground is snow-covered, and imposes strict liability for damages and suppression costs on any person who kindles a fire without a permit. (3) The New Hampshire State Fire Code (NFPA 1, 2021 ed., adopted under RSA 153 effective August 13, 2024), which sets life-safety baseline standards. (4) Nashua City Code Chapter 110 (Burning, Open) and Chapter 156 (Fire Prevention), administered by Nashua Fire Rescue's Fire Marshal's Office. The largest vegetated areas inside Nashua are Mine Falls Park (about 325 acres along the Nashua River), the Pennichuck Brook drinking-water watershed in the city's northwest corner, and riverside forest along the Merrimack River. The NH Division of Forests and Lands publishes daily Fire Danger ratings (Class I Low, II Moderate, III High, IV Very High, V Extreme); on Class V days the state and Nashua suspend permitted burning regardless of permit status.