Prescribed Fire Liability Report for the Southern United States: A Summary of Statutes (2024)

Authors: Bill Cary and Jamey Lowdermilk, of law firm Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P., in collaboration with Jennifer Fawcett, North Carolina State University Extension

The Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) works across geographic and organizational boundaries to overcome development pressures in select areas for management of military lands, compatible resource-use decisions, and coordination among regions, states, communities, and military services. The Comprehensive Strategy for Prescribed Fire to Restore Longleaf Pine in the Southeast was written to fulfill SERPPAS’s Strategic Action Plan goal of developing a comprehensive, regional strategy for increasing prescribed burning in the Southeast.

The vision of the Strategy was to have region-wide application of prescribed fire at the scale and frequency needed for longleaf pine restoration and maintenance. Since a majority of forestland in the Southern region is privately held, an important goal of the Strategy was to minimize landowners’ risk of liability associated with prescribed fire.

Liability is an important consideration for private landowners and others who conduct prescribed burning. Minimizing the risk of liability will require increasing understanding of—and perhaps modifying—prescribed fire laws, developing robust and affordable liability insurance, and promoting public communication and outreach to alleviate concerns about fire-related risks.

Each of the thirteen states in the Southern region has laws in place related to prescribed burning, but the laws vary regarding the legal obligations imposed and the guidelines for liability protection. This Report summarizes these laws, associated regulations, and known court cases for each Southern state to help increase understanding and minimize landowners’ risk of liability associated with prescribed fire.

This Report is not legal advice, see Disclaimer, but instead is a general overview intended for educational purposes. To understand the issues in detail for the areas where you engage in prescribed burning, the authors encourage you to read the statutes and rules and regulations, and to consult with legal counsel with any questions.

  

 

 

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