Fitchburg, WI Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

Fitchburg's fire-prevention division, Chapter 70, Article II, Division 2, addresses outdoor cooking under § 70-57(d), "Outdoor cooking devices allowed." The section covers charcoal grills, pellet or solid-fuel grills, liquid petroleum (LP) gas-fueled devices, and other open-flame cooking devices, permitting their use in the City of Fitchburg, Dane County, Wisconsin, subject to specific safety conditions. Device placement is restricted to at least ten feet from a building structure or lot line, the device must be completely cool to the touch before it is stored, and it must be used and maintained according to the manufacturer's safety requirements.

This subsection sits inside the same open-burning and fires division that separately bans unattended fires, requires DNR compliance for any burning, and sets out the city's open-burning permit system administered by the Fitchburg Fire Department. Section 70-57 was rewritten in full by Ord. No. 2024-O-15, adopted May 28, 2024, replacing the prior trash-and-fire-burning rule from the 2009 Compiled Ordinances § 3.12; that rewrite is where the current ten-foot clearance and cool-before-storage rules for grills and smokers first appear. A separate clause of the same subsection restricts balcony, porch and wood-deck use for multifamily buildings, addressed on its own page.

Because § 70-57 does not carry a device-specific forfeiture beyond its general listing, a violation of the outdoor-cooking placement rules is punished as "Fires and trash burning regulated" on the city's Sec. 70-309 forfeiture schedule, and enforcement runs through the Fitchburg Fire Department and municipal court rather than the zoning administrator. This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin, south of Madison in Dane County, distinct from Fitchburg, Massachusetts.