Fire Risk

Open air burning of green waste by the Departmental Health Regulations (RSD)

Open burning of household green waste is strictly prohibited by Article 84 of the Departmental Health Regulations. This prohibition is valid at all times and in all places.

Indeed, cut vegetation from parks and gardens (green waste) is considered household waste under waste regulations (item no. 20-02 of the table in Annex II to Article R541-8 of the Environmental Code, which classifies waste) . Grass clippings, dry leaves, and cypress hedge trimmings are all subject to this permanent prohibition.

Exceptions to the Departmental Health Regulations

However, the RSD provides for exceptions to this rule.

The prefectoral decree of August 31, 2012, concerning the use of fire, provides an exception to the general ban on open burning of green waste. This exception applies to the burning of green waste resulting from regulated brush clearing, provided that no other easily accessible means of disposing of this waste is made available to individuals subject to this legal obligation (Article 3 of the decree). This decree also regulates the use of fire for landowners and their successors in title when plant waste is not considered household waste. This is the case for cut or standing vegetation burned as part of agricultural or forestry activities. Compliance with the provisions of the aforementioned decree of August 31, 2012, does not in any way release the person responsible for starting the fire from civil liability in the event that the fire spreads to other properties.

In any case, the decree strictly prohibits the use of fire in all its forms (and therefore the burning of cut plants as well) between June 15 and September 15 in and near wooded areas within and up to a distance of 200 meters from woods, forests, moors, scrub, scrubland, plantations and reforestation.