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Usually, burn season starts December 1 and ends April 30, but those dates can change. As it happens, the 2007 burn season has been placed on hold until Santa Cruz county receives an additional four inches of rain. Your local fire station will know when burn season officially starts, so you'll have to call after a few more storms come through.
During burn season you may burn brush and tree trimmings if it is an allowed burn day as determined by the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District. To determine if it is a permissive burn day call 1-800-CAL-BURN after 4pm the day before you wish to burn and listen to the recorded message. Before burning you should also notify your local fire station. This serves two purposes. First, it is possible that burning is suspended by your local fire authority. (For example, in November all burns of any type in much of the county were suspended because so many of our engines and crews were fighting wildfires in southern California.) Secondly, if someone calls in asking about smoke, it will help the fire department to know that you're burning.
Assuming you can legally burn, you must do it safely. The requirements are that your burn may be no larger than four feet in any dimension, so the largest pile you can burn is 4' x 4' x 4'. You are responsible for avoiding environmental conditions that would make the burn unsafe, like burning on a steep hillside, in a high wind, etc. Stack the material so that it will get plenty of air - that reduces the smoke created. You must have suitable clearance all around the pile. A four foot high pile requires ten feet of clearance all the way around, as the rule is 2.5 times the height of the pile. A responsible adult must be present during the entire burn, and a pressurized hose and shovel must be present as well to extinguish anything that starts to spread. Your burn must be fully extinguished by dusk. Do NOT let it go out by itself. Our area regularly gets changes of wind direction and speed in the evening and these can cause embers to blow off in unexpected directions. In addition, fires that are not fully extinguished sometimes flare back up hours or even days later. We've responded to those calls. To avoid that problem extinguish your burn entirely by soaking it down completely before dark.
Materials to be burned must be thoroughly dry to minimize pollution. There are specific legal guidelines for how long something must have dried before it is burned: tree stumps six inches or larger in diameter must dry at least 180 days before burning. Trees and branches between two and six inches in diameter must dry for at least 60 days before burning, and anything less than two inches in diameter and plant trimmings must dry for at least 30 days before burning. Leaves and wet materials may not be burned. Only vegetation trimmed from your own property may be burned, and the burning of anything else - trash of any sort, plastic, etc. - has been illegal statewide since January 1, 2004.
If these rules feel a bit limiting, they're supposed to. And there's more. You can be cited for burning illegally, and you may be responsible for fire suppression costs. The pollution control district and your fire departments suggest chipping, composting, or hauling your trimmings to the landfill as alternatives to burning. These are all less polluting - and less risky - alternatives to the backyard burn.