Smyrna, TN Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

Section 7-502 of the Smyrna Municipal Code requires a permit for open burning in the Town of Smyrna, Tennessee, but § 7-506 lists the outdoor fires that are exempt from the permit process. The first item on that list is contained cooking fires. The second covers recreational fires, including outdoor fire pits, fireplaces, burn barrels and portable grills, and that item is expressly subject to § 7-506.1. The list also exempts open fires for the training and instruction of firefighting personnel and heating on construction projects, provided the burning is in a suitable metal container.

The code does not use the words smoker, barbecue or propane, and it contains no section on smokers as a separate appliance. What the town does regulate is the fire itself. For portable grills and similar devices, § 7-506.1 requires a distance of at least fifteen (15) feet from structures, and it limits the fuel burned to wood, vegetation or charcoal. A responsible person must stay with the fire until it is extinguished. Burning garbage, trash, rubber, asphalt or other prohibited materials is strictly prohibited, and § 7-507 repeats the ban on burning household waste, treated wood and plastics.

The Fire Chief keeps authority over any outdoor fire. Under § 7-504 the Fire Chief or a designee can forbid, restrict or suspend burning when weather or other conditions are unfavorable or hazardous for outdoor fires, and § 7-509 says all fires are subject to immediate extinguishment upon order of the Fire Department. A cook in the Town of Smyrna who is not using a contained cooking fire, a portable grill or a fire pit, and who instead burns yard material, falls back into the permit categories of § 7-502: land clearing, residential yard waste burning or recreational fires. Permit requests go to the Fire Department under § 7-503.