Dallas County, TX Outdoor Cooking: BBQ & Propane Rules (2026)

Sec. 38-1(a) of the Dallas County Code makes burning combustible materials outside an enclosure that contains all flames and sparks an offense in the unincorporated county, but the same subsection carves out three exceptions by name: household trash burned in fire-marshal-approved barrels, trench burning, and charcoal grills. That express exemption means a charcoal grill does not need to meet the enclosure requirement that otherwise governs open burning, so backyard and patio grilling with charcoal is allowed under the county fire code without a containment screen.

The code text reviewed does not contain a separate propane-specific rule or a balcony or multifamily placement standard for grills; the county's Fire Prevention and Protection chapter (Chapter 38) is built around the wildfire-focused open-burning offense and the adopted Dallas County Fire Code (International Fire Code plus NFPA and UL standards, Sec. 38-31), rather than a standalone grill-placement ordinance. Any multifamily or balcony grill restriction in practice would come from an individual building's fire code inspection under the adopted International Fire Code provisions, a lease, or an HOA rule, not from a distinct county grill-placement section.