KNOX COUNTY, Tenn — On Wednesday, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture stopped issuing burn permits in most of the state due to weather conditions.
Whether you're allowed to burn at all depends on where you are.
"You cannot burn inside the City of Knoxville or anything with the population over 100,000 people," said DJ Corcoran of the Knoxville Fire Department. "The only thing that is permittable is fires that are for ceremonial purposes, like for religious purposes, or for cooking fires."
Even then, those fires are restricted to 3 feet by 3 feet.
"We recommend that you do that do that out in an open area," Corcoran said. "Make sure that you don't have any brush or leaves or anything lying around that can ignite."
In some other parts of East Tennessee, burning yard waste is allowed as long as you obtain the proper permit from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.
You can get those by visiting Burn Safe TN or calling the Division of Forestry office in each county. Whether those are issued can depend on weather conditions.
"It's always better to just wait and burn maybe next week sometime or a little bit later down the road than it is to to let the fire escape," said Nathan Waters of the Division of Forestry. "Stay alert... be cautious and be watching the weather."
In addition to watching for things like wind, Waters said you be cognizant of your surroundings.
"I don't want to be too close to [a forest area] if I'm burning because embers can blow 20, 30 feet easily off of a small brush pile," Waters said. "You don't want anything flammable to come in contact with any wooden or plastic part of your house. Make sure your gutters are clear."
For now, Corcoran said the majority of fires KFD is responding to are starting inside homes.
"Be on your guard," Corcoran said. "Now that the routines are starting to change, people are starting to become careless and not to remembering to turn their stoves off and things like that."