Do WNC burn bans apply to wood-burning fire pits and outdoor fireplaces?

Wooded lots, two town lines

Black Mountain and Montreat both sit under dense hardwood canopy in the Swannanoa Valley, and both are incorporated towns that can set open-burning rules stricter than Buncombe County or the Forest Service. So a ban you read about for the county isn't necessarily the whole story for your street.

The valley's temperature inversions leave mornings ten to fifteen degrees colder than Asheville, and the same still, dry air behind a front is what makes an open fire risky enough to shut down.

Confirm before you light

With the Forest Service, the county, and the towns of Black Mountain and Montreat all able to declare bans, the honest move is a quick call to the Buncombe County fire marshal to learn which orders are active at your address. Some prohibit every open flame outdoors; others allow small attended fires within limits.

Gas that stays lit through the ban

Black Mountain has natural-gas service in and around downtown, and a gas fire pit or outdoor fireplace fed from it carries no embers and shuts off at a valve — generally usable even when wood fires are banned. On a cool Swannanoa Valley evening it lights with no hauling and no smoke drifting across close-set wooded lots. We're 15 minutes east of our Asheville showroom; call (828) 545-0525.