Last Updated: · Written by Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay
Sometimes, but rarely on a house lot. Florida Forest Service rules require authorization for land clearing piles and a setback of at least 300 feet from any occupied building, 50 feet from wildlands and brush and 100 feet from paved public roads, with the fire out an hour before sunset. Burn bans and local codes can rule it out entirely.
Flatwood Land Clearing Palm Bay provides debris hauling and clearing across Palm Bay and south Brevard, and on most lots here the debris plan is chipping, mulching or hauling because burning is not available. This guide explains why, and when burning is.
In short
- Land clearing piles need Florida Forest Service authorization and 300 feet from any occupied building.
- A yard waste pile under 8 feet across needs no authorization if it meets the shorter setbacks, but land clearing debris is not yard waste.
- Air curtain burners need a DEP air permit or exemption and the same 300-foot setback.
- Brevard and Palm Bay have banned open burning when the drought index reached 500.
- Local rules can be stricter than the state’s; Titusville prohibits land clearing fires without a special permit.
The state rules for pile burning
Open burning in Florida is governed by Chapter 590 of the Florida Statutes and the Florida Forest Service’s rule 5I-2.006 of the Florida Administrative Code. For land clearing, the rule sets these limits:
| Pile type | Authorization | Occupied buildings | Other setbacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land clearing or residential pile | Florida Forest Service authorization | 300 feet or more | 50 feet from wildlands, brush and combustible structures; 100 feet from paved public roads |
| Non-residential pile without an air curtain | Florida Forest Service authorization | 1,000 feet or more | As above |
| Air curtain incinerator | DEP air permit or exemption, plus authorization | 300 feet or more | Pit no wider than 12 feet |
| Yard waste pile, 8 feet across or less | None if compliant | 150 feet from other occupied buildings; 25 feet from your own house | 25 feet from woods and brush; 50 feet from paved public roads |
Non-certified pile burns must finish one hour before sunset, and yard waste burns cannot be lit before 9 a.m. The rule also says tree-cutting debris from a residential property of no more than two family units may be burned only on the site where it was produced, under the pile rules. And burning must comply with any stricter local rule, which is where most house lots are ruled out before the state setbacks even come into it.
Why 300 feet rules out a platted lot
A Palm Bay platted lot averages about 0.27 acre, roughly 100 by 118 feet. A 300-foot circle around a pile covers about 6.5 acres, so a burn pile on a typical lot would need nothing occupied on the lot, or on any of the two dozen or so lots around it, within that circle. On a built-up street that is impossible. On a lot in a sparsely built unit, it may be possible on paper and still be a bad idea next to dry palmetto.
Acreage is different. A five-acre parcel in Malabar or Grant-Valkaria with the nearest home far off may meet the setbacks, and burning there is a question of authorization, weather, local rules and smoke, not just distance.
Burn bans in Brevard and Palm Bay
Even where the setbacks work, a ban can stop the burn. In May 2024, with Brevard’s Keetch-Byram Drought Index at 500, Palm Bay’s fire chief banned open burning until further notice, covering campfires, bonfires, trash burning and similar fires, under Brevard County Code Section 50-1. State-permitted burns, grills and authorized fireworks were excepted. City web text describes the same 500 trigger for a county and city ban in April 2025, and Palm Bay put another ban in effect in May 2026 amid continuing fire warnings.
The dry months are when bans come. Melbourne’s long-term rainfall normals show February and April as the driest months, at about 2 inches each, against about 7 inches a month from June to September. That is the same season when the ground is firmest for clearing, which is why the best time to clear land and the best time to burn rarely line up.
Palm Bay’s fire history shows why the rules are strict. The May 2008 Mother’s Day fires burned more than 10,000 acres, destroyed 33 homes and damaged 236, and the main fire began as a brush fire in southwest Palm Bay. In April 2026, brush fires burned about 130 acres in the undeveloped area known as The Compound. Palm Bay Fire has advised clearing dense brush at least 30 feet from homes.
Lot too close to the neighbors to burn?
Most are. Send photos and the address, and the scope prices chipping, mulching or hauling instead.
Local rules stricter than the state
The state rule is the floor. Towns and cities can go further, and some do:
- Titusville prohibits fires for burning trash and underbrush in connection with land clearing. The fire chief can approve a special burn permit for large-scale land clearing case by case, with a fire department fee and Florida Forest Service and Titusville Fire conditions, and burning without a permit carries a fine for each occurrence. Titusville’s tree code even reduces its tree mitigation payment when trees are logged instead of burned.
- Palm Bay has used temporary bans tied to the drought index, as above.
- Other towns in south Brevard set their own limits, confirmed per address.
Homeowners report smoke and ash from neighbors’ clearing burns soaking into their houses and cars, and complaints like that are part of why local rules tighten around built-up areas.
What happens to the debris instead
When burning is off the table, the debris plan is one of three things, and it is often the biggest single variable in the price.
Chipping. Limbs and small trees go through a chipper and the chips are spread on the lot or hauled. Chips work on paths, buffers and the back of the lot. They do not belong under a house pad, where they decay and leave voids under the fill.
Mulching in place. A forestry mulching head grinds standing growth into a mulch layer. It is fast and leaves nothing to haul, but it leaves stumps and roots in the ground, which stump grinding or grubbing deal with later. The forestry mulching vs land clearing guide covers where that finish fits.
Hauling. Logs, stumps, slash and palmetto root mass are loaded and taken to a county site that accepts land clearing debris, at the county’s posted gate rates. In September 2026 Brevard’s Sarno landfill in Melbourne temporarily closed after reaching capacity, and county trucks were sent to the Central Disposal Facility in Cocoa, so the haul distance itself can change. Melbourne also makes contractors, not the city’s sanitation hauler, responsible for disposing of yard waste from tree removal. Debris hauling explains how loads are priced.
On a Palm Bay house lot, hauling is usually the cleanest finish for the building areas, with chips or mulch kept for the edges. The lot clearing cost guide shows how each choice moves the price.
If you plan to burn on acreage
Where the setbacks can be met, plan the burn as its own job. Get the Florida Forest Service authorization, check the drought index and any county or city ban on the day, keep piles clean of soil so they burn down instead of smoldering, and keep the fire attended until it is out. Sand caught in palmetto root mass keeps a pile smoldering long after the flames die, which is one more reason root mass is often hauled even on land where brush is burned. What to do after land clearing covers the ground once the debris is gone.
Need the debris gone, not burned?
Send the address and a few photos of the lot. The scope says how much material there is and whether it is chipped, mulched in place or hauled.