A charcoal or wood-fired smoker on private property is a cooking fire under Puget Sound Clean Air Agency rules: keep it under three feet in diameter and two feet high, burn only charcoal or clean firewood, attend it, and don't smoke out neighbors. Gas smokers are appliances.
There is no separate Snohomish County ordinance for backyard smokers. A charcoal- or wood-fired smoker used for cooking falls under the PSCAA recreational/cooking fire rules that govern the whole county: under three feet in diameter and two feet high, no burn permit required, and only charcoal, dried firewood, or manufactured firelogs as fuel. Gas and pellet smokers are cooking appliances rather than open burning. A person capable of extinguishing the fire must attend it at all times. Cooking fires are always prohibited during air-quality burn bans, and it is always illegal to let smoke create a nuisance for neighbors, in which case you must put the fire out immediately.
Using banned fuels, exceeding size limits, or smoking during an air-quality ban can draw fines starting around $1,000 plus fire-department response costs; nuisance smoke must be extinguished on demand.
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