Despite the rain which has fallen recently… please do not be tempted to tidy up and burn all that rubbish just yet…check with your Mairie first.
In my region bonfires are forbidden until late autumn…and still we have incidents caused by plonkers who should know better…
Canada and US are having their own problems…
Thank you for the public service announcement Stella. Driving down into town most mornings you can see the smoke of several bonfires. Indeed last week we said hello to our maire who was doing a bit of débroussaillage in his uncle’s woodland complete with bonfire. Pity the BBC can’t spell reinforcements.
Hi David… I thought it was worth posting…not every Commune is under the same restriction.
Holiday makers are not necessarily aware of their local situation… … and often come to their second-home intent on doing the annual tidying up, without giving it a thought…
Unless you have watched the flames race through the woodlands, smelt the smoke and heard the crackle…seen the haggard faces of those affected…then, perhaps this does not seem important. However, in our Commune we have suffered through some terrible times.
Even so, there is always someone who will shrug their shoulders and “do their own thing”. Sometimes this ends in yet another tragedy… sometimes only a fine from the Gendarmes and a stern telling-off.
I’ve got loads of stuff that needs burning so in May I popped down to my mairie (I bet you’re proud of me Stella!) to have a chat. They have a very helpful chart up on their wall explaining when and who can burn what and where - it resembles the planning chart for the moon landings! Only thing is it’s dated August 2009!
To cut an extremely long and boring story short - no private individual has the right to burn anything, any time, any where around these parts - end of! Funny thing is though - I see fires on an almost daily basis, obviously not ‘private individuals’ then !! Yeah…
Anyway I’ll give it until the end of the year to avoid setting light to SW France and then have a good old burning session - maybe 5 November ??. The fine is a round 400€ which is way cheaper then getting rid of my rubbish (from massive tree felling) any other way.
Incidentally the only folks around here who have ever been warned or fined (to my knowledge) are ‘foreigners’ - either resident or second home owners. Surprise, surprise!! 
Must be because we’re all so rich…
@simonflys…
Of course I am proud of you… you are trying to do the “safe thing” and getting p******d-off by everyone else who seems to getting away with murder…(ok slight exaggeration…we’ve had injuries but no deaths YET… in our commune… but it is surely only a matter of time 
) )
My Original Post was in reaction to the News articles about fires abroad…which had brought back some really horrible memories, that I had hoped to forget…
re Second-home owners… they rarely know the seasonal regulations (in my experience), so perhaps that is why they get fined more times (if indeed they do). Here, we try to keep them abreast of any current situation, but it is not easy.
Frankly, until there is a death (or deaths) there will always be folk who ignore safety and let rip…