About the data
burnbanradar answers one question: can I burn today, here? We read public burn-ban orders from state and county sources, report them unchanged, and stamp when we last read them. We do not guess.
The rule that overrides everything else
A wrong "no ban" answer can lead to an illegal fire. Every county status on this site carries a timestamp, a link to the source, and the statement that the county's own order governs. When a source is unreachable or an order is ambiguous, the county's status becomes Unconfirmed — not "open by default". The map colours a not-yet-covered area grey, never green. Freshness beats coverage.
Red Flag Warning vs. Burn Ban — different things
A Red Flag Warning or Fire Weather Watch is issued by the National Weather Service. It is a weather product — dry, windy, hot conditions that mean fire spreads fast. It is not a burn ban and does not, by itself, make outdoor burning illegal. On this site NWS overlays live in their own colour and never change a county's legal status.
A burn ban is a legal restriction issued by a state authority, a county judge, a parish government, a city council or a fire chief. Only a legal order changes what you may legally burn.
Sources — Session 0 starter set
- Texas — declared by counties. Source: Texas A&M Forest Service ↗
- Ohio — statutory seasonal rule. Source: Ohio Revised Code §1503.18 ↗
- New York — statutory seasonal rule. Source: NYS Department of Environmental Conservation ↗
- Louisiana — declared by parishes. Source: Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry ↗
- Indiana — declared by counties. Source: Indiana Department of Homeland Security ↗
- West Virginia — statutory seasonal rule. Source: West Virginia Division of Forestry ↗
- Virginia — statutory seasonal rule. Source: Virginia Department of Forestry ↗
- Kentucky — statutory seasonal rule. Source: Kentucky Division of Forestry ↗
- Georgia — statutory seasonal rule. Source: Georgia Environmental Protection Division ↗
- National Weather Service — Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings, live. Source: api.weather.gov ↗
How often we refresh
A scheduled build runs each morning (08:00 UTC / 3 AM CT). It fetches every source in parallel, diffs against the previous snapshot, appends any status changes to each county's history, and rebuilds the site. If a source is unreachable, that state's counties move to Unconfirmed for the day rather than showing yesterday's answer as today's.
What we do not do
- We do not scrape sites that block automated access. Michigan, Arizona, Colorado and CAL FIRE endpoints require agency contact.
- We do not aggregate cities and towns inside counties. Municipal ordinances are the responsibility of the local fire marshal.
- We do not sell "workarounds." The commerce module (planned for Session 4) only lists options that stay legal under the current order, or gear worth having ready for after a ban lifts.
Who runs this
burnbanradar is an independent project. Corrections, agency contact, and data-quality feedback: kontakt@burnbanradar.com.