If you are rural and don't have the Watch Duty app yet, I recommend it. You can set notifications for your county if a wildfire starts up.

I'm at the cabin in Colorado and the county is under stage 2 fire restrictions. I've had to change my barbecue plans, can't cook with charcoal or use my offset stick burner smoker, had to break down and buy a gas grill. My friends were like just go ahead and use the smoker anyway. I thought about it, and decided I wasn't going to be the guy that burned down the Colorado forest.

Sunday afternoon I heard thunder but it wasn't raining. We had a lightning strike that started a wildfire 3 miles from the cabin. They are on high alert around here and I got a "Pre-evacuation notice" on both my cell and land-line. I watched a helicopter drop 15 buckets of water on the fire in the next hour and a half. Thankfully there was a fire-fighting helicopter already stationed in the county.

I packed a bag and was ready to run if need be. Had the garden hose out and was thinking about fight or flight. I also took a look around and thought yeah, those brush piles that have been sitting around for 2 years need to be chipped and hauled off.

Gotta be honest...if the State or Feds told me that I couldn't fire up my Egg, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves.

Regarding fire danger, create a green zone around your home if you live in an area susceptible to such an occurrence.

At one point I was about 1/2 mile from a “pre-evacuation notice” zone for our local wildfire. It’s pretty well knocked down now, thanks in part to the rain we’ve been getting, but even though I was only close to the pre-evac zone, I had everything that I was going to be taking in a single pile to be loaded in the car.

As for ignoring fire restrictions, I know for certain that people are being issued citations for doing that in my county. A county next to mine cited people for violating the shooting ban. The first offense fine for just violating my county’s ordinance is $250; if it were up to me, it would be 100× that.

The reported cost as of several days ago for fighting the local ~7000 acre fire was over $20,000,000. It’s known to have been “human caused,” and they’re looking for the people who were responsible for starting it.

As a born and raised Texan the I'll do whatever I want on my property idea is pretty strong.

I have a different mentality right now in Colorado, it is tinderbox this summer. One county south of me there is an active 39,000 acre fire, two counties east there is a 101,000 acre fire.

My cabin is sitting on 1/4 backed up to a national forest. I had my annual barbecue a week ago for 50 people and normally smoke 3 briskets. I wouldn't be able to hide the 16 hour brisket smoke from my neighbors, they would see it and it would certainly smell too damn good! I had to change my menu to gas grilled fajitas. I don't want to be the guy on the 6 o'clock news that burned down the Colorado forest, they would put me in jail for 20 years.