Charlottesville, VA Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

City Code § 12-32(a)(8) prohibits open burning citywide, but subsection (b) carves out cooking: open fires may be used for cooking food if the fire is contained within approved grills and barbecues used for preparing food for human consumption. That single sentence is the entire operative rule for backyard grills, charcoal smokers and similar cooking equipment; the ordinance does not set a separate distance-from-structure rule for grills the way it does for outdoor heating salamanders under subsection (c). Even a compliant grill fire is still subject to the general conditions in subsection (e): open burning must be constantly monitored until extinguished, fire-extinguishing equipment must be available for immediate use, and the fire chief keeps reserved authority to prohibit or order out any fire, cooking fire included, if smoke reduces highway visibility, endangers adjacent property, or otherwise creates a hazard or nuisance.

Because the cooking-fire exception sits inside the fire prevention code rather than the zoning or property maintenance chapters, it is enforced by the Charlottesville Fire Department through its fire official rather than by Neighborhood Development Services, and it applies uniformly across residential and commercial properties without a separate homeowner permit.