Madera County, CA Outdoor Cooking: BBQ & Propane Rules (2026)

32 Fire Regulations, governs outdoor cooking and open flame at vacation and short-term rentals across unincorporated Madera County, including the foothill communities of Oakhurst, Bass Lake, Ahwahnee, and North Fork. Subsection A covers grills, barbeques and other outdoor cooking apparatuses: they cannot be used beneath flammable overhangs such as trees, umbrellas, decks, or other appurtenant structures, must sit at least ten feet from any structure or flammable material, and where ten feet is infeasible must be placed as far away as the lot allows and protected with flame-retardant mats specified by the local fire department.

Charcoal grills of any type are strictly prohibited at short-term rentals, and guests cannot supply their own equipment: only grills the rental itself provides, used in the spot they are installed, are allowed. Subsection B extends the same logic to open flame: no wood-burning fire pits, bonfires, or campfires are permitted at short-term rentals at all. Natural gas or propane fireplaces and fire pits with tanks of twenty pounds or less that the rental provides are allowed outdoors if kept at least ten feet from any structure or flammable material, and again guests cannot bring their own units.

Subsection C separately reminds owners of foothill and forested short-term rentals that they remain responsible for state defensible-space compliance under Public Resources Code Section 4291, enforced by CAL FIRE, on top of the county's own rules. The current version was adopted by Ordinance No. 110. 32; it is separate from the county's transient occupancy tax registration requirements for short-term rentals found elsewhere in the code.