9.36.060 - Outdoor burning.
A. General Prohibition Against Outdoor Burning. No person may cause, suffer, allow, or permit any outdoor burning within city limits, except as provided by this subchapter or applicable state law.
B. Exceptions. The following exception to disposal fires applies to any current prohibition against outdoor burning at the city's Rio Bosque Park:
1. Notwithstanding any current prohibitions against outdoor burning within the limits of the city, there shall be an exception for a disposal fire that consists of the on-site burning of trees, brush, grass, leaves, branch trimmings, or other plant growth at Rio Bosque Park located at 10719 Socorro Road, El Paso, Texas by the city or any other person authorized by the city and when the material is generated only from that property even while said outdoor burn is in a designated nonattainment area or that contains any part of the city that extends into a designated nonattainment area, if the plant growth being disposed was generated as a result of right-of-way maintenance, land clearing operations, and maintenance along water canals when no practical alternative to burning exists. Such burning is subject to the following requirements:
a. Prior to prescribed or controlled burning, the applicant for an open burning permit shall submit to the fire official an application for an open burning permit, a minimum often ten days in advance of the proposed burn, and that application shall include the date(s) burning will occur, specific location, the time burning will commence, and the estimated time burning will terminate.
b. The fire official shall in turn submit the application to the department. Upon review of the application, the director shall approve said application if the following criteria are not met or shall deny said application if the following criteria are met, and within five working days of receipt of the application shall notify the fire official of the director's approval or denial of the application: During periods when the outdoor burn ban is in effect for El Paso County, as established by the Texas Interagency Coordination Center;
i. If the request proposes anything other than the on-site burning of trees, brush, grass, leaves, branch trimmings, or other plant growth when the material is generated only from that property and when there is no other practical alternative means of disposal; or
ii. If there is a structure with sensitive receptors on adjacent property less than three hundred feet from the area of the open burning, unless the disposal fire requestor provides written approval from the property owner where said structure is located.
c. After receipt of a denial from the director, the fire official shall notify the applicant of said denial. After receipt of an approval from the director, the fire official shall issue the open burning permit for the prescribed or controlled burn subject to the following criteria being met:
i. Current and adopted fire code requirements;
ii. An on-site pre-burn inspection conducted by the El Paso Fire Department-Fire Prevention Division when required by the fire official;
iii. Receipt of fees for the open burning permit; and
iv. Receipt of fees for fire watch/standby personnel when such personnel are required by the fire official in the amount identified in the adopted budget resolution for the current fiscal year, or other appropriately adopted resolution by city council.
d. Pursuant to this subsection, a "practical alternative" is defined as an economically, technologically, ecologically, and logistically viable option, such as recycling, composting, mechanical chipping or mulching, logging, landfills or air curtain incineration (trench burning).
e. Burning must be outside the corporate limits of the city except as described in this subchapter which permits burning consistent with the Texas Clean Air Act, subchapter E, Authority of Local Governments, as amended.
f. Burning shall commence and be conducted only when wind direction and other meteorological conditions are such that smoke and other pollutants will not cause adverse effects to any public road, landing strip, navigable water, or off-site structure containing sensitive receptor(s), unless the city obtains prior written approval from the property owner where said receptor is located.
g. If at any time the burning causes or may tend to cause smoke to blow onto or across a road or highway, it is the responsibility of the person initiating the burn to post flag-persons on effected roads.
h. Burning must be conducted downwind of or at least three hundred feet (ninety meters) from any structure containing sensitive receptors located on adjacent properties unless the city obtains prior written approval from the property owner where said structure is located.
i. Burning shall be conducted in compliance with the following meteorological and timing considerations:
i. The initiation of burning shall commence no earlier than one hour after sunrise. Burning shall be completed on the same day not later than one hour before sunset, and shall be attended by a responsible party at all times during the active burn phase when the fire is progressing. In cases where residual fires and/or smoldering objects continue to emit smoke after this time, such areas shall be extinguished if the smoke from these areas has the potential to create a nuisance or traffic hazard condition. In no case shall the extent of the burn area be allowed to increase after this time.
ii. Burning shall not be commenced when surface wind speed is predicated to be less than six miles per hour (mph) (five knots) or greater than twenty-three mph (twenty knots) during the burn period.
iii. Burning shall not be conducted during periods of actual or predicated persistent low-level atmospheric temperature inversions.
j. Electrical insulation, treated lumber, plastics, non-wood construction/demolition materials, heavy oils, asphaltic materials, potentially explosive materials, chemical wastes, and items containing natural or synthetic rubber must not be burned.
2. The fire official is authorized to order the extinguishment by the permit holder or the fire department of open burning, which creates or adds to a hazardous or objectionable situation.
3. Prescribed or controlled burning without an approved open burning permit shall not be allowed and the applicable local amendment to the International Fire Code (Chapter 9.52.030.15 of the El Paso City Code) relating to payment for a permit shall be enforced.
(Ord. No. 19043, § 7, 3-17-2020)
