Whether a burn permit is required, where to apply for it, and whether additional rules must be met, depends on where the burn will take place and the type of burn - whether open burning of one hand stacked pile of natural vegetation (i.e. yard debris) or open burning of one or more machine piled natural debris for land clearing, right-of-way maintenance or silviculture prescribed burns.
Only natural vegetation may be legally burned. DO NOT BURN building materials, lumber, asphalt shingles, rubber, plastic, fuel or other man made materials.
A burn permit does not absolve you from liability if the fire spreads and damages other property. Air quality requirements must be met.
The Sky Valley - Scaly Mountain VFR Department operates in two different states and three different jurisdictions: the City of Sky Valley, unincorporated Rabun County, Georgia and unincorporated Macon County, North Carolina. The location and type of burn will dictate the rules that must be followed:
If the burn is in Macon County, NC, the required burn permit for open burning is available from the Online Burning Permit System of the NC Forest Service. EXCEPTION: If burning yard debris within 100 feet of an occupied dwelling AND the material to be burned is "within an enclosure from which burning material may not escape" or "within a protected area upon which a watch is being maintain and which is provided with adequate fire protection equipment", no permit is necessary.
If the burn is in Rabun County, GA:
If the burn is in Sky Valley, GA additional rules and applications must be followed.
Georgia law mandates five safety precautions that are good ideas anywhere you burn. These five requirements are known as SSTAR:
| Georgia Mandatory Take 5 - SSTAR Requirements | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Space | 1. | 25+ feet between fire and woodlands | |
| S | Space | 2. | 50+ feet between fire and structures | |
| T | Time | 3. | Sunrise to sunset | |
| A | Attendance | 4. | Person responsible stays on-site until fire is completely extinguished | |
| R | Reasonable Precautions | 5. | Tools/measures in place to prevent escaped fire. Some examples are:
| |
Safe disposal of wood fire ash is an often-overlooked fire prevention measure. Hot coals can survive for days buried in white ash, and their red glow is often not visible in daylight. When cleaning out a fireplace, wood stove, smoker, etc., that has been used within the last week, ashes should be moved to a metal bucket and water added to the bucket until the ash and water can be stirred like a soup. Yes, this is messy and a nuisance, but not nearly so much a nuisance as extinguishing a brush fire, making repairs to a building, or worse...