What stage 1 and stage 2 fire restrictions mean

Stage 1: campfires only where there's a ring

Stage 1 is the first tightening. Campfires, charcoal, and coal fires are allowed only inside a permanent metal or concrete fire ring in a developed recreation site — a numbered campground or picnic area the forest built and maintains. A rock ring you scraped together at a dispersed site doesn't count, and that's the part most people get wrong.

A camp stove or lantern that runs on bottled gas or liquid fuel with a shut-off valve is still fine, because you can kill the flame in a second. Smoking is limited to inside a vehicle or building, or standing in a spot at least three feet across that's been cleared down to bare dirt. Most forests leave chainsaws and generators alone at stage 1, though a few add hours or a spark-arrester rule, so read the order for the forest you're headed to.

Stage 2: no open flame, and hours on the saw

Stage 2 means no wood or charcoal fire anywhere on the forest — not in the campground ring, not in the fire pit at the cabin, not a warming fire at 6 a.m. The bottled-gas stove with a shut-off valve is usually still allowed, and for a lot of people that's the whole difference between a trip and a cancelled trip. Smoking goes back to inside a vehicle or building only.

Stage 2 also puts hours on equipment. Chainsaws, generators, and other internal-combustion engines typically run only in the early part of the day — commonly stopping at 1 p.m. — with an approved spark arrester, a shovel, and a fire extinguisher within reach, plus an hour of standing around watching the spot afterward. Welding and torches with an open flame are out unless you've got a permit. Driving off the road onto dry grass is usually out too, since a hot exhaust in cured grass starts as many fires as campers do.

A closure means stay out

A closure isn't a stricter stage — it's the gate. When a forest or a district goes into closure, the roads, trails, and campgrounds inside the closed area shut, and simply being out there is the violation. Closures usually come with a map, and they're often partial: one drainage or one ranger district closes while the rest of the forest stays open under stage 2. If you have a trip planned into a closed area, the trip is over — the fine isn't the point, the reason for it is.

County burn bans are a different animal

A county burn ban and a federal fire restriction are two separate rules written by two separate offices, and they don't line up.

A burn ban is declared by the county — the commissioners or the county judge, usually on the fire marshal's word — and it covers private and unincorporated land in that county. It's aimed at the brush pile, the burn barrel, and the field burn. It ends when the county lifts it, sometimes after one good soaking rain.

A fire restriction is a signed order from the forest supervisor or a federal land manager, and it covers that federal land and nothing else. Cross the forest boundary and you're under a different rule, in either direction — plenty of counties are under a full burn ban while the national forest next door still allows campground fires, and the reverse happens too. State forests, state parks, and tribal land each set their own on top of that.

The rule for standing on any given piece of ground is simple: whichever rule covers where you are is the one you follow, and where two overlap, the tighter one wins.

Before you go

Check the forest's current stage on our fire restrictions list, then check the county you'll be driving through on the state pages — the drive out with a load of firewood is covered by county rules, not the forest's.

Fire orders change with the weather — check the forest's alerts page or ranger district before you light anything.