Prohibited Activities and Criminal Penalties - Revised 08/03/2007
- AZDEQ -
A. Classification of materials that the permittee may burn under this permit:
1. “Agricultural Burning” means burning vegetative materials related to producing and harvesting crops
and raising animals for the purpose of marketing for profit, or providing a livelihood, but does not
include burning of household waste or prohibited materials. A person may conduct agricultural burns
in fields, piles, ditch banks, fence rows, or canal laterals for purposes such as weed control, waste
disposal, disease and pest prevention or site preparation.
2. "Construction Burning" means burning wood or vegetative material from land clearing, site preparation
or fabrication, erection, installation, demolition, or modification of any buildings or other land
improvements, but does not include burning household waste or prohibited material.
3. "Residential Burning” means open burning of vegetative materials conducted by or for the occupants
of residential dwellings but does not include burning household waste or prohibited material.
B. Types of material that cannot be burned with this permit:
1. "Dangerous material" meaning any substance or combination of substances that are capable of causing
bodily harm or property loss unless neutralized, consumed. or otherwise disposed of in a controlled
and safe manner.
2. "Household waste" meaning any solid waste including garbage, rubbish, and sanitary waste from a
septic tank that is generated from households including single and multiple family residences, hotels
and motels, bunkhouses, ranger stations, crew quarters, campgrounds, picnic grounds, and day-use
recreation areas, but does not include construction debris, landscaping rubble, or demolition debris.
3. "Prohibited material" meaning non-paper garbage from the processing, storage, service, or
consumption of food, chemically treated wood, ply wood, particle/MDF board, painted or stained
wood, linoleum flooring, and composite counter-tops, tires, explosives or ammunition, oleanders,
asphalt shingles, tar paper, plastic and rubber products (including bottles for household chemicals OR
beverages, plastic grocery and retail bags), waste petroleum products such as waste crankcase
oil, transmission oil, and oil filters transformer oils, asbestos, batteries, anti-freeze, aerosol spray cans,
electrical wire insulation, thermal insulation, polyester products, hazardous waste products such as
paints, pesticides, cleaners and solvents, stains and varnishes, and other flammable liquids, plastic
pesticide bags and containers and hazardous material containers including those that contained lead,
cadmium, mercury. or arsenic compounds (also see area for other examples).
C. Conduct all open burning only during atmospheric conditions that:
1. Prevent dispersion of smoke into populated areas.
2. Prevent visibility impairment on traveled roads or at airports that result in a safety hazard.
3. Do not create a public nuisance or adversely affect public safety.
4. Do not cause an adverse impact to visibility in a Class I area.
5. Do not cause uncontrollable spreading of the fire.
D. Nothing in A.A.C. R18-2-602 is intended to permit any practice that is a violation of any statue, ordinance,
rule, or regulation.
E. You must also comply with requirements of A.R.S. §13.1706 as listed below:
1. It is unlawful for any person, without lawful authority, to intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with
criminal negligence to set or cause to be set on fire any wild land other than the person's own or to
permit a fire that was set or caused to be set by the person to pass from the person’s own grounds to
the grounds of another person.
2. This section does not apply to any of the following:
a. Open burning that is lawfully conducted in the course of agricultural operations.
b. Fire management operations that are conducted by a political subdivision.
c. Prescribed or controlled burns that are conducted with written authority from the state forester.
d. Lawful activities that are conducted pursuant to any rule, regulation or policy that is adopted by
a state, tribal or federal agency.
e. In absence of a fire ban or other burn restrictions to a person on public lands, setting a fire
for purposes of cooking or warming that does not spread sufficiently from its source to require
action by a fire control agency (ie: campfire).
3. A person who violates this section is guilty of an offense as follows:
a. If done with criminal negligence, the offense is class 2 misdemeanor.
b. If done recklessly, the offense is a class 3 misdemeanor.
c. If done intentionally or knowingly and the person knows or reasonably should know that the
person's conduct violates any order or rule that is issued by a governmental entity and that
prohibits, bans, restricts or otherwise regulates fire during periods of extreme fire hazard, the offense
is a class 6 felony.
d. If done intentionally and the person's conduct places another person in danger of death or serious
bodily injury or places any building or occupied structure of another person in danger of damage,
the offense is a class 3 felony.
