Burning Brush in Rural Grayson County Starts With a Phone Call

Out past the city limits, in the stretches of pasture and tree line between Pottsboro, Whitesboro, and the back roads off Highway 56, you can still burn a pile of brush, limbs, leaves, or household kitchen trash you generated on your own place. Inside any city, forget it; this is for the unincorporated county only. And before you strike a match, you call the Grayson County Communications Center at 903-813-4411 that same morning to register your address and confirm it's an allowable burn day. That call is how the county keeps a grass fire from pulling a truck across half the county.

The day-of rules are specific, not suggestions. Light it no earlier than an hour after sunrise and have it dead out an hour before sunset, with no burning after dark. Skip it entirely if the wind is, or is forecast to hit, 23 mph or more, and keep the smoke off your neighbor's house and off the road. Stay at least 300 feet from any occupied structure on the property next door. No construction debris, furniture, tires, oils, or chemicals; those never go on the pile.

Whoever lights the fire has to stay with it the whole time and owns the liability if it gets away. And none of this overrides a burn ban: when the county's under one, that 903-813-4411 call is exactly where they'll tell you today's a no.