About
What BurnDates is
A burn ban is a county decision, and there's no national place to look it up. BurnDates puts every county's answer in one place: whether there's a ban, the day it started, what it covers, and when we last checked.
Who we're for
The person with a brush pile and a free Saturday. The farmer waiting on a window to burn a field. The family loading the camper who'd like to know whether they'll be cooking over wood or over propane. You want a status, a date, and what's allowed — not a map portal and not a statute.
Where the answers come from
Counties post their own burn ban orders, and in most states the forestry agency keeps the running list. That list is what we read.
- Texas — Texas A&M Forest Service
- Oklahoma — Oklahoma Forestry Services
- Arkansas — the Forestry Division of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture
- Tennessee — the Tennessee Division of Forestry
- Colorado — the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control
- Missouri — no state agency keeps a current list (counties declare bans one by one, so check with your county directly)
- Washington — no statewide county list exists (DNR tracks fire danger by zone, and burn bans stay with each county fire marshal)
Where no statewide list exists, that state's counties show as unverified — not as clear — and the county pages point you at who to call instead.
On federal land the rules are different and so are the sources: fire restriction stages come from each national forest's own alerts page, and we link the order on every forest page. Here's how the stages work.
The rules we hold ourselves to
Every status shows when it was checked. Not "today", not "current" — the actual time we last saw it on the source. If that reads "checked 3 hours ago", that's what happened.
If we can't re-confirm a status within 2 days, it stops being an answer. The page says the status is unverified and tells you to call the county, instead of repeating the last thing we saw as though it were still true. A stale "no ban" is the worst thing this site could hand you, so we'd rather show nothing than that.
When a source won't read cleanly, we don't guess. A partial list never becomes a page full of counties marked clear. Those counties keep showing as unverified until a good check lands.
The county's own word wins. If the county's notice and the state's list disagree, follow the county — it's their order and their fire marshal.
This is not legal advice
BurnDates is not the county, not the fire department, and not a permit. Nothing here is legal advice or permission to burn. Rules change fast in dry weather — a windy afternoon can put a county under a ban before anyone updates a webpage.
Confirm with your county fire marshal or burn line before you light. On public land, check the forest's alerts page or ranger district.
If a page here is wrong
If your county's status here doesn't match the order on the courthouse door, the order is right — every page links the list we read, so you can see the same thing we saw and when we saw it. Go by the county, and by the date on the order.