What is it?

You are not allowed to light fires in the open air. If you want to do this anyway, you have to apply for an exemption from the municipality. For example, for an Easter fire, bonfire or if you are burning wood or green waste.

Note

You do not need to apply for a waiver if you make fire with candles, torches, fire baskets, patio fireplaces or if you light a fire for cooking, baking and roasting, such as a barbecue.

What to do.

You request the exemption from the municipality. When doing so, please provide the following information:

• the type of waste incinerated
• the location of the fire
• the date, start time and duration of the fire

How does it work?

The burning of waste materials, without having applied for and been granted an exemption under Section 10.63 of the Environmental Management Act, shall be tolerated if:

• for firing has been granted an exemption pursuant to Article 5:34 of the General Municipal Regulation and
• the Requirements listed under B are met

An exemption for a bonfire or campfire is granted only for the burning of clean wood. Also in fire baskets, etc., only clean wood may be stoked. Wastes for which a burning exemption is possible.

A. Wastes for which a firing exemption is possible. 

1. Prunings than are released during the conservation of valuable (cultural) landscapes or landscape elements, as part of small-scale landscape management. Yard planting, for example to hide stables from view, may be included, at the discretion of the competent authority.
2. Fruit trimmings
3. Clean wood exclusively for the purpose of bonfires and campfires
4. Wood that must be destroyed quickly because of disease and/or pests. The competent authority may ask for proof regarding the disease, for example a statement from the Plant Protection Service in Wageningen.

N.B. Valuable cultural landscapes or landscape elements are defined as: wooded banks and canals, old lot fences, livestock fencing, and groves. (Garden waste, including waste from a garden fence, is not included in this definition). Clean wood means: wood not preserved by paint or impregnation, without other materials attached. Sheet material is not considered clean wood. Requirements under which the firing of substances listed under A may be tolerated.

B. Requirements under which the firing of substances listed under A may be tolerated

1. The applicant shall indicate exactly on drawing from which landscape element or part thereof the prunings come from and when this (part of) a landscape element was last pruned or thinned.
2. If it has been less than four years since the relevant (part of) a landscape feature was pruned or thinned, the competent authority may determine that firing without an exemption will not be tolerated.
3. With the exception of bonfires and campfires, fires may only be lit between sunrise and sunset