Fitchburg, WI Outdoor Cooking: BBQ & Propane Rules (2026)

Multifamily grill placement in the City of Fitchburg, Dane County, Wisconsin, is governed by § 70-57(d)(1) and (d)(5), part of the outdoor cooking devices subsection Ord. No. 2024-O-15 added to the fire code on May 28, 2024. Subsection (d)(1) prohibits using a charcoal grill, pellet or solid-fuel grill, LP gas-fueled device, or other open-flame cooking device on a balcony, porch or wood deck. The exception is narrow: it applies only to single-family and two-family dwellings where one dwelling unit is not directly above the other, so a duplex with side-by-side units qualifies but a stacked duplex or an apartment building does not.

Subsection (d)(5) shifts part of the compliance burden onto landlords. Except for one- and two-family dwellings, wherever occupancy is under a lease, the lease must include an addendum, signed by both owner and tenant, prohibiting use of a grill on a balcony, porch or wood deck or within ten feet of the structure. That ten-foot figure lines up with the separate clearance rule in (d)(2) that applies to ground-level grill placement generally. Apartment and condominium managers in Fitchburg are the ones most exposed to this rule, since it requires an affirmative lease clause rather than just relying on the underlying ban.

Enforcement runs through the Fitchburg Fire Department under the same "Fires and trash burning regulated" forfeiture line at Sec. 70-309 that covers the rest of § 70-57, since the balcony clause carries no separate listed fine. This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin south of Madison, not the older Fitchburg, Massachusetts mill city in Worcester County.