04/16/2026
🚫🔥 ANOTHER STATEWIDE BURN BAN IN EFFECT BEGINNING TOMORROW AT 7AM🔥🚫
The South Carolina Forestry Commission has issued a statewide burn ban due to increased fire danger across the area.
🚨 What this means:
- No outdoor burning of any kind
- This includes yard debris, trash, and campfires
- The ban is in place to help prevent rapidly spreading wildfires
Dry conditions and wind can cause fires to get out of control quickly, putting lives, property, and first responders at risk.
We ask everyone to do their part:
✅ Hold off on any burning
✅ Report any signs of smoke or fire immediately
✅ Stay alert and help keep our community safe
Thank you for your cooperation and support.
Stay safe!
SC Forestry Commission to issue statewide burning ban; restriction on all outdoor burning goes into effect at 7 a.m. Friday
COLUMBIA—The South Carolina Forestry Commission is issuing a State Forester’s Burning Ban for all counties, effective at 7 a.m. Friday, April 17.
A State Forester’s Burning Ban prohibits all outdoor burning, including yard debris burning, prescribed burning, campfires, bonfires and other recreational fires in all unincorporated areas of the state.
Forestry Commission officials cite a particularly dangerous mix of elevated wildfire risk factors through the weekend that warrant limiting all ignitions in the interest of public safety.
Rapidly escalating drought conditions across the state, a critical decrease in relative humidities over the next several days and gusty winds that are expected to accompany an approaching cold front will combine to create extreme fire danger.
"When it’s this dry – energy release component values are at high-to-critical levels – we’re just as likely, if not more, to see wildfires that are fuel-driven rather than wind-driven. Add the other volatile conditions of increased wind and lower relative humidity, and it becomes an especially precarious situation,” said SCFC Fire Chief Darryl Jones. "These conditions not only increase the likelihood of wildfires igniting easily and spreading rapidly, but would also make them more difficult for firefighters to control.”
While the ban does not apply to fires used for the preparation of food or fires used in appropriate enclosures (portable outdoor fireplaces, chimineas or permanent fire pits constructed of stone, masonry, metal or other noncombustible material that conforms with all applicable South Carolina fire codes), Forestry Commission officials urge the utmost caution burning outdoors under these exemptions.
Likewise, citizens should exercise extreme vigilance operating any equipment that could create sparks, avoid parking on dry grass and refrain from using fireworks.
The ban will stay in effect until further notice, which will come in the form of an official announcement from the Forestry Commission.
Shareable release:https://www.scfc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Advisory-StateForestersBurningBan-20260416.pdf
