You must obtain a Burn Permit prior to starting to burn.
The following information is provided, so the residents for Baroda Township and the Village of Baroda can understand the restrictions around open burning. The State of Michigan requires that local Fire Departments regulate open burning and issue permits to people that meet the restrictions / requirements to be allowed to burn materials.
In order to obtain a Verbal Burning Permit, you will need to provide the following information:
- The address or nearest address to where the burning will take place.
- The name of the person that is responsible for the fire and ensure that they are aware of the requirement and agree to stay with the fire until it is out.
- Verify what you will be burning? Michigan ONLY allows natural wood (logs and branches) to be burned. You are NOT allowed to burn garbage or processed wood (i.e. – you cannot burn cut up 2x4s or other scrap wood, especially at new construction sites.)
- Is there any exposures or structures nearby? We want to prevent the possibility of the fire spreading to any unintentional combustible material.
This information is very helpful to our Fire Department, so we are aware of active fires burning in our response area at any given moment and provides us information about locations if we get a 911 call for a possible fire.
If a permit is issued, here are some reminders on the conditions that apply to all permits:
- The permit is issued only for the day of the call. The verbal burn permit is not an approval to burn on a future date, as the weather may be different than the current conditions. If you are going to burn on multiple days, you must obtain a permit on every day that you are going to burn.
- There should be no active flames after dark, due to us receiving numerous 911 calls from people driving by on their cell phones, when they see flames.
- We encourage a water source to be available near the fire, if possible.
- Call 911 if you feel that the fire is getting away from you or the intended area. Please call as soon as you feel that you need some assistance- sooner is better than later. We are a volunteer fire department and it will take us a few minutes to get to your location with our firefighters and fire trucks. With fires, minutes count so, again, call early.
After reviewing the information on this page and you are ready to obtain a Burn Permit, you will need to call one of the Fire Department Officers listed below to obtain a Verbal Burning Permit. There is no cost to obtain a Burning Permit from the Baroda Fire Department.
Fire Chief Chris Burch 989-534-1194
Assistant Fire Chief Donnie Johnson 269-326-0990
Captain Jeff Gaul 269-876-8416
If the person does not answer your call, please leave a message. If you do not get a response within ten minutes, go to the next person down the list and repeat the process until you talk to someone from the Fire Department. You must obtain a permit prior to starting to burn. Please NOTE that the Baroda Fire Department is a volunteer fire department, so all of our members have other jobs and we are not always immediately available to answer a telephone call.
Below are some links to additional information about opening burning.
Baroda Township – Open Burning Ordinance # 35
https://barodatownship.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/barodatwpordno35-openburning.pdf
Village of Baroda – Fire Prevention and Protection – Ordinance / Chapter # 14
https://www.ecode360.com/33323191
Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy
https://www.michigan.gov/egle/0,9429,7-135-3310_4106_70665_70668—,00.html
NOTE: The Page contains several links to additional Information and some Frequency Asked Questions.
DO NOT USE the “Get a Burn Permit” Link from the EGLE Page. It will direct you to “contact local fire department or government office to obtain a burn permit” for Berrien County. The process of doing that is stated above.
Open Burning Regulations in Michigan (Flyer)
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-aqd-open-burning-brochure_273553_7.pdf
Baroda Township 