Guide

Fire: what is burning, and burn bans

Checked September 30, 2026 against ADEM’s open-burning rule, the Alabama Forestry Commission, the Governor’s office, the National Weather Service and the National Interagency Fire Center.

Alabama publishes no fire danger level for a county and no list of burning restrictions by county. So the Fire tile on the Alabama board answers two questions from the agencies that do decide them: is anything burning near here, and may I burn.

Three authorities, three rows

ADEM’s seasonal ban, May through October

Alabama’s air rules revoke open burning every year “during the months of May, June, July, August, September, and October” in twelve counties, Mobile and Baldwin among them (ADEM rule 335-3-3-.01(2)(d)). The ban covers the burning that rule allows the rest of the year: yard waste, brush, and debris from land clearing, construction and right-of-way work. Cooking and recreational fires are outside it, and so are the agricultural, forestry and wildlife burns the rule allows with a Forestry Commission permit. It is a calendar, so the tile works it out from the date: from May 1 to October 31 it says Open burning banned; the rest of the year it says the ban returns May 1. An Air Stagnation Advisory from the Weather Service bars the same burning whatever the month, and the tile shows one when it is issued for these counties.

The Forestry Commission’s orders

The Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC) steps burning restrictions up and down with the weather, statewide or for named counties:

• Fire Danger Advisory. No restriction; AFC “strongly discourages any outdoor burning until conditions improve.” Permits are still issued.
• Fire Alert. Burn permits only for Certified Prescribed Burn Managers.
• No Burn order. A Governor’s Drought Emergency Declaration: no outdoor burning at all, prescribed burns and campfires included. The last one ran from November 9 to December 4, 2023.

AFC posts each order, change and lift as a news page on its website, and publishes no list a server can read. The tile reads those pages in order and replays them. When AFC’s own words do not settle it, the tile says Check, and it says so often, for three reasons:

• AFC’s lifts do not always reach its website. The statewide Fire Alert it posted on April 13, 2026, “at least through Monday, April 20,” has no lift there, though local reports said it was extended past that date. An open-ended order with no posted lift is shown as in force for three weeks past its date, then as Check.
• Some orders name an area as a phrase, like “all counties south of and including Sumter, Greene, Hale ...,” rather than a list.
• Some step the level day by day, like the weekend of March 27 to 29, 2026: an advisory, then no permits at all on the Saturday, then an advisory again.

The Weather Service

A Red Flag Warning is dry, windy weather that makes any fire hard to hold. It is shown as weather, not as a ban. An Air Stagnation Advisory is shown as a ban, for the reason above.

Before you burn

• Any fire over a quarter acre, or within 25 feet of woods, needs an AFC permit. They are free, from AFC’s dispatch at 1-800-392-5679. Burning a field, grassland or woodland without one is a Class B misdemeanor.
• Some cities issue their own permits under an agreement with AFC, and cities and fire districts have burning rules of their own. Ask your city first.
• None of these rows is permission. The best the tile says is that none of the three authorities has a restriction in force.

What is burning: the interagency list

The fires on the tile come from the National Interagency Fire Center’s list of current wildfires, the same list the live map draws. The tile shows wildfires in Mobile and Baldwin counties or close enough to matter, and leaves out prescribed burns. A fire that is fully contained drops off a week after it was found.

• It is not every fire. Local fire departments and the Forestry Commission put out most grass and woods fires on this coast without it reaching that list. An empty list means nothing nearby has been reported to it, not that nothing is burning.
• Acres and per cent contained are the last figures reported, not live measurements. Contained does not mean out.
• Distance is a straight line from your town to where the fire was reported, not a driving distance, and it says nothing about where the smoke will go.

If you see a fire

Call 911. To report a wildfire to the Forestry Commission, call 1-800-392-5679. Nothing on this site reports a fire to anyone.

Sources

• Alabama Administrative Code, rule 335-3-3-.01 — ADEM’s open-burning rule and its May–October months
• Alabama Forestry Commission — its orders, as posted
• Alabama Forestry Commission, burn restrictions — what each level means
• Alabama Forestry Commission, burn permits
• Office of the Governor, newsroom — Drought Emergency Declarations
• National Interagency Fire Center, open data — the current wildfire list