Bonfires
Tidying up your garden and thinking of a bonfire to get rid of your rubbish or holding a Bonfire Night party?
Before you light your bonfire
- Build your bonfire at least 18 metres (60ft) away from houses, trees, hedges, fences or sheds.
- Make one person responsible for the bonfire, and allow only that person and designated helpers into the bonfire area.
- Bonfires should be no more than 3 metres in height. There should be a suitable barrier around the bonfire to keep spectators 5 meters away.
- Warn your neighbours beforehand. They are much less likely to complain if you light the bonfire at a time least likely to affect your neighbours e.g. not on a warm day when people will be in their garden.
- Burn clean dry timber. Green waste such as Conifer branches and leaves produce lots of harmful smoke
- Before lighting the fire, check its construction carefully to make sure that it is stable, and that there are no children or animals inside.
- You could be fined if you light a bonfire that allows smoke to drift across a road and become a danger to traffic.
- Use domestic firelighters to light your bonfire.
Once alight
- Keep some buckets of water or ideally a working hosepipe nearby.
- Keep children and pets away from the bonfire.
- Once the bonfire has died down, spray the embers with water to stop it reigniting.
Don't
- Burn
- green waste
- aerosols
- batteries
- bottles
- foam-filled furniture
- tins of paint
- tyres
- Use
- petrol
- paraffin
- diesel
- or other flammable liquids to light your bonfire
Recycle your garden waste
All districts have kerbside green waste collections or you could take it to your local Waste Recycling Centre.