GREENFIELD, Ohio — The Paint Creek Joint EMS & Fire District is reminding residents across its coverage area that Ohio’s annual fall restrictions on outdoor burning took effect Thursday, barring most open burning during daytime hours through the end of November.
“No open burning allowed due to dry conditions,” the district said in a Facebook post announcing the ban, which runs today through Nov. 30.
The statewide ban, laid out in Ohio Revised Code 1503.18, is not a local rule created by the district but a standing state law enforced by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry. It applies every March, April and May, and again every October and November, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, according to the law.
Paint Creek Joint EMS & Fire District is headquartered in Greenfield and provides 24/7 fire, rescue and EMS response across more than 362 square miles spanning parts of Highland, Fayette and Ross counties, making it one of the larger coverage areas of any fire district in the region.
Officials said the spring and fall timing of the restriction is tied to the driest, most fire-prone stretches of the calendar, when dead leaves and dormant grass combine with dry, windy weather to raise the risk that an outdoor fire escapes control.
The law does not prohibit a responsibly attended campfire, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which defines open burning as any outdoor fire without a chimney or stack. Even a properly built fire in a burn barrel is restricted during the banned hours, since the law applies to outdoor burning generally, not just unconfined debris piles. Anyone whose fire escapes and spreads is still in violation of state law, so fires should be watched at all times and fully extinguished before being left unattended.
Certain materials may never be burned anywhere in Ohio, at any time of year: food waste, dead animals, and anything containing rubber, grease, asphalt or petroleum products.
Other statewide restrictions include keeping fires more than 1,000 feet from a neighbor’s inhabited building, a prohibition on burning during any air pollution alert, warning or emergency, and a ban on burning within village or city limits or other restricted areas. Smoke from a fire also cannot be allowed to obscure visibility on roadways, railways or airfields, and no waste generated off the property where it is burned may be burned there.
Residents with questions about local burning regulations were encouraged to contact their fire department. More information on the state’s open-burning law is available through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry at forestry.ohiodnr.gov, or from the Ohio EPA at 614-644-2270.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Paint Creek Joint EMS & Fire District.
