Collierville, TN Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

Collierville adopts the 2018 International Fire Code in § 91.15(A) and then amends it. The amendment to Section 307.1.1 is blunt: open burning is prohibited within the Town Limits, and no person may cause, suffer, allow or permit open burning of refuse, garbage, trade waste, trees, limbs, brush, grass clippings, leaves, agriculture stubble, or materials from salvage operations. That text points back to Chapter 96 of the Town's ordinances.

The first printed exception is the one a cook cares about. The section does not apply to grilling, barbeque, or cooking food using charcoal, wood, propane or natural gas in cooking or grilling appliances. The fuels are named, so a smoker fed with wood or charcoal and a grill fed by propane or natural gas sit on the same footing. The wording ties the exception to cooking or grilling appliances, which is the line to watch: a fire that is not inside a cooking appliance is judged under the recreational fire and outdoor fireplace sections instead.

The definitions in § 91.17 reinforce this. A RECREATIONAL FIRE is defined as an outdoor fire burning materials other than refuse where the fuel is not contained in an incinerator, portable or fixed outdoor fireplace, barbeque grill or barbeque pit, with a total fuel area of three feet or less in diameter and two feet or less in height. A barbeque grill or pit is named as something separate from a recreational fire, so the 25 foot recreational fire clearance in Section 307.4.2 is not the rule for a grill.

The exception printed in § 91.15 itself sets no clearance distance, hours or permit for a grill or smoker. Section 307.1 also ties open burning to the Shelby County Health Department's Air Pollution Control requirements adopted by reference in Chapter 96, and Section 307.2.1 reserves written authorization for open burning to the Shelby County Health Department Pollution Control and the Collierville Fire Department. The Collierville Fire Department enforces the fire code, and appeals of the fire code official's orders go to the Construction Board of Adjustment and Appeals under § 91.20.