Highland, CA Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

The City of Highland adopts the 2025 California Fire Code in Highland Municipal Code § 15.29.010 and names the fire marshal as the authority charged with administering and enforcing it. Section 15.29.030(M) adds Section 328 to that code, and Section 328 is the outdoor fire rule. Section 328.1 bars building, igniting or maintaining an outdoor fire in or upon hazardous fire areas without a permit from the fire code official. The exception covers fires within inhabited premises or designated camp sites that are built in a permanent barbecue, portable barbecues, outdoor fireplace, incinerator or grill and sit a minimum of 30 feet (9,144 mm) from a grass-, grain-, brush-, or forest-covered area. The text never uses the word smoker. The words it does use are permanent barbecue, portable barbecue, outdoor fireplace, incinerator and grill.

The city's amendment to Section 202 defines a hazardous fire area as land covered with grass, grain, brush or forest that is so situated, or so inaccessible, that a fire there would present an abnormally difficult job of suppression or would cause great and unusual damage through fire or resulting erosion. Those areas are designated on maps entitled "Hazardous Fire Areas of San Bernardino County" kept in the office of the Chief.

Permits under Section 328.2 carry terms and conditions that reasonably safeguard public safety and property. No outdoor fire is allowed in a hazardous fire area when high winds are blowing, when a person aged 17 or over is not always present to watch and tend the fire, or when a public announcement says open burning is prohibited. Section 328.3 bars using barbecues, outdoor fireplaces or grills to dispose of rubbish, trash or combustible waste material. Section 605.3.2 separately prohibits free-standing non-commercial incinerators, and Section 605.3.1 requires an approved spark arrester on chimneys and vents serving fireplaces or heating appliances that burn solid or liquid fuel.