Beaches
Beach bonfire rules: whoever manages the sand writes them
There is no national beach-fire rule, and no state-wide one you can carry from beach to beach. A fire on the sand is legal or not depending on who manages that stretch of shoreline — and the beaches people actually drive to sit under four kinds of manager: a state, a city or county, the National Park Service, or a federal land agency. Here's how to tell which one you're standing on, what each usually allows, and what closes a beach that otherwise says yes.
First work out who manages the sand
Everything else follows from this. Two beaches ten minutes apart can sit under different agencies with different answers, and neither one is the exception — that's just the ordinary shape of it.
| Who manages the beach | Who writes the fire rule | Where the current answer lives |
|---|---|---|
| State park or state-owned shore | The state parks agency, usually park by park — and in a few states the whole wet-sand shore is one park unit. | The park's own page, plus the agency's current fire-restriction list. |
| City beach | City ordinance, with the parks department running the rings and the fire department enforcing. | The city beach or parks page, and the fire department for anything outside a ring. |
| County beach | County ordinance. The fire marshal typically approves which stretches may be used at all. | The county's beach-safety or fire-rescue page. |
| National seashore or park beach | The unit superintendent, writing conditions into that unit's compendium under the federal fire rule. | The unit's laws-and-policies page, where the compendium is posted. |
| National forest or BLM shoreline | The forest supervisor or the BLM field office, by signed order — the same stage-and-order system as inland public land. | The forest's alerts page or the field office's fire-restriction page. |
The examples further down are here to show each pattern, with a link to the page that says it. They are how those agencies' own pages read in August 2026, not a reading of any beach tonight — the whole reason this page exists is that only the agency can tell you that.
One federal rule, and every seashore answers it differently
On National Park Service beaches the federal regulation is short. Lighting or maintaining a fire is prohibited "except in designated areas or receptacles and under conditions that may be established by the superintendent". So the actual rule is whatever the superintendent wrote into that park's compendium — and two seashores on two coasts read nothing alike.
At Cape Cod National Seashore, small fires are allowed by permit on designated salt-water beaches, and the permits are rationed beach by beach — four each at Coast Guard, Nauset Light and Marconi, three at Head of the Meadow, and so on down the list. Nothing may be lit before 5 p.m. (5:30 at Coast Guard Beach), flames may not top three feet, and the fire may not sit in a portable pit or any other container. Fuel has to be clean natural wood with no chemical treatment or coating and no nails or screws in it. The permits themselves are free, reserved up to three days ahead in person or by phone, and the seashore voids them for high wind or an extreme high tide.
At Cape Hatteras National Seashore, beach fires are authorized year-round, also on a free permit, also capped at three feet across — but the shape of the rule is different. Fires are out between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. From May 1 to November 15 they're confined to the beaches in front of a named list of villages and day-use areas; from November 16 through April 30 they're allowed throughout the park unless something else restricts them. And no fire may burn within 100 meters of a turtle-nest closure, or inside a resource closure at all.
Same agency, same regulation, same activity. Different permit desk, different hours, different map. This is why "national seashores allow beach fires" is not a fact you can act on, and why the compendium — posted on each unit's laws-and-policies page — is the document to read.
State beaches: the default flips at the state line
Oregon treats the shore itself as a park. The Ocean Shore State Recreation Area runs the length of the coast — the 1913 law declared the beach between ordinary high tide and extreme low tide a public highway, and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department has looked after it since. On that shore, beach campfires may be built on open sand, away from driftwood or vegetation, and you put them out with water rather than sand. Individual parks add their own limits on top, and the department keeps a running list of which parks are under fire restrictions — a list that grows through the dry months and sometimes restricts only the day-use area or only the beach.
California starts from the opposite end. State Parks' own rules summary says fires are permitted only in the facilities provided for the purpose — the concrete rings — and that gathering down wood is prohibited. No ring on that state beach means no wood fire on it, and the driftwood is not yours to burn.
On the Great Lakes the Michigan DNR answers it in one line: campfires in designated fire rings only, never left unattended, and no burning garbage. Three coasts, three defaults — carry the rule you learned at home across a state line and you'll be wrong about half the time.
City and county beaches: the ring is the rule, and the fire marshal picks the beach
Municipal beaches are where the concrete fire rings live, and the city usually treats them as a facility to be managed rather than a right. Huntington Beach, California runs its rings through the parks department and reserves a limited number of pits for exclusive use at a daily fee, booked at least a day ahead, with barbecues kept within six feet of the pit, coals disposed of in the pit only, and everyone off the beach by the 10 p.m. curfew.
Counties tend to add one more decider: the fire marshal, who decides which stretches of beach may host a fire at all. Brevard County, Florida publishes a list of approved locations for a recreational fire on the beach, and when erosion takes a beach out the list shrinks with it — its page has stretches marked as closed for that reason. Volusia County next door runs reservable fire rings at three beachfront parks, allows your own fire pit on the sand outside turtle season as long as it stays clear of the conservation zone and the emergency traffic lane, and requires the fire to be put out with water by 11 p.m. Two adjoining counties, two different systems, one state.
Forest Service and BLM shoreline
Where a national forest or BLM land runs to the water, beach fires are governed by the same signed orders that govern the woods behind them — which means the stage system, not a beach ordinance. The Siuslaw National Forest's snowy plover order (06-12-04-25-02) is a good example of the shape: from March 15 to September 15 the restricted dune and beach areas are closed to camping, dogs, vehicles, kites and drones — and to burning wood or any other material — while the wet, packed sand stays open to walking.
BLM shoreline works the same way through the field office. When the Arcata Field Office announced seasonal restrictions for the North Coast in July 2025, campfires and barbecues were confined to established rings in developed campgrounds and recreation sites across four counties, while portable gas stoves stayed legal outside them — including on the Lost Coast Trail — for anyone carrying a valid California campfire permit. Which is the other half of the BLM pattern: California, for one, wants a state campfire permit in your pocket before you strike a match on public land, whatever the beach itself allows. If the stage vocabulary in those orders is new to you, stage 1 and stage 2 explained covers it.
What the rule usually controls
Once you know whose beach it is, the questions their page answers are nearly always the same six:
- Where. In a provided ring, or on open sand, or below the high-tide line, or only in front of certain access points. This is the question that varies most.
- Whether you need a permit. Free and reserved by phone, free and rationed per beach per night, a paid reservation, or none at all.
- When. Not before 5 p.m. at one seashore, out by 10 p.m. at another, off the beach by curfew at a city beach.
- How big. Three feet is the number that keeps recurring, measured as diameter in some orders and flame height in others.
- What you may burn. Clean untreated wood, nothing with nails or screws, no pallets or painted lumber — and in some places nothing you picked up on site, since gathering down wood or driftwood is its own prohibition.
- How to put it out. Water, stirred through the coals — Oregon's parks department says it in one line: water, not sand. Burying a fire insulates it, and California State Parks warns that coals buried in the sand stay hot for days and burn the next person to walk over them.
What closes a beach that otherwise allows fires
A beach that permits fires in general can still be closed to them tonight, by a rule written somewhere else entirely. Four overlays do most of it.
A county burn ban. This is the one people are most often caught by, because the permit in your hand doesn't survive it. When Brevard County went under a countywide burn ban, its beach-fire page said beach fires were off until further notice — including fires already approved for later dates. A permit is permission from one office; a ban is a different office overruling it. Check the county you'll be standing in before you count on a fire.
Nesting season. Beaches are habitat, and the closures are seasonal and absolute where they apply. On the Oregon dunes it's the western snowy plover from March 15 to September 15. In Florida it's sea turtles, and fires count as light: Volusia County allows no beach fires during turtle season, May 1 through October 31, and Brevard's runs March 1 through November 1. Dates differ county to county along the same coastline.
Weather and the beach itself. Cape Cod voids fire permits for high wind or an extreme high tide. Brevard drops eroded stretches off its approved list. Neither shows up as a rule change — it shows up as your fire being cancelled.
Public-land fire restrictions. On forest and BLM shoreline the order can move to a stricter stage on a Friday before a holiday weekend, and campfires go first. The current stage by forest is worth a look on the way out.
Where to check, in order
Two minutes, in this sequence, gets you an answer you can rely on:
- The page for that beach. City or county beach page, state park page, or the park unit's laws-and-policies page. This is the rule that governs the sand you'll be standing on.
- The agency's current restrictions. A state parks fire-restriction list, a forest's alerts page, or a BLM field office's restriction notice — the seasonal layer on top of the standing rule.
- The county. A burn ban reaches the beach in most states, and it's declared by the county, not the beach. Our state pages carry who declares it and where the county's own list lives.
- The fire department, if you're still unsure. On a municipal or county beach the fire marshal's office is the one that answers the phone about fires, and it is the office that will be there if something goes wrong.
What we don't do here
We don't publish bonfire spots, and we don't tell you a named beach is open tonight. Beach fire rules turn on the season, the tide, the wind, a nesting closure and the county's burn status all at once, and any list of "beaches where you can have a bonfire" is wrong somewhere the day it's written. What holds is the pattern above: find the manager, read their page, then check the county.
Bringing wood with you is its own question, and beach permits often turn on it — buy it where you burn it covers why hauled firewood is a problem and what a quarantine means. If the trip is a camping one, the dispersed-camping rules by forest carry the stay limits and the fire answer for the ground behind the dunes.
Nothing here is permission to light a fire. Rules change fast in dry weather, and a beach that allowed a fire last summer may not today — confirm with the agency that manages the beach, and with the county fire marshal or burn line, before you light.