Bartow County, GA Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

The Bartow County Code defines petroleum products broadly, covering gasoline, diesel, kerosene and similar flammable or corrosive fuels, but section 34-353 specifically carves out lighter fluid properly used to ignite charcoal in a grill or barbecue from that definition, so ordinary backyard grilling and smoking is not swept into the article's ban on burning petroleum products. Section 34-355(d) reinforces that exemption at the enforcement level: when the fire chief declares an open burning ban during drought or other dangerous conditions, the ban explicitly does not include fire department training fires or cooking with typical grills or smokers, so residents can keep cooking outdoors even while campfires and bonfires are prohibited county-wide.

The fire marshal and county code enforcement officers are authorized to enforce the open burning article, issuing citations under the penalty provisions of section 1-19 for anyone who burns items the exemption does not cover, such as treated wood, plastics, rubber or petroleum products beyond grill-lighter use. Because the exemption is narrow, a resident using an outdoor smoker or grill to burn construction debris, tires, or plastic waste, rather than food, loses the protection and falls back under the general prohibitions of section 34-355(c) and the county's litter and illegal-dumping rules.