The Administrative Rules Committee removed a set of forestry-related rules from the consent calendar and voted to grant a waiver and postpone final action for one month to allow staff to review the rule’s 5-inch diameter restriction for permissible burn materials and its relation to state statute and environmental rules.

The rules under review cover operation of wood processing mills, wood concentration yards, forestry health, forest fire prevention and administrative fines. A committee member pulled the item from consent, saying the statute limiting permissible fires (cited in the meeting as RSA 227-L:17) appears to define “camper cooking fire” as a small cooking fire and does not specify a wood-diameter limit.

Steve Sherman, chief of the Forest Protection Bureau in the Division of Forests and Lands (DNCR), told the committee the 5-inch diameter standard is used to limit smoldering fires that are harder to extinguish and to remain consistent with the Department of Environmental Services open-burning rule (Env-A 1001.03), which the agency cited in the rule text. Sherman said material larger than 5 inches tends to smolder, poses a higher wildfire risk and contributes more pollutants because it does not burn cleanly.

Committee members raised practical concerns for homeowners and private landowners managing larger woodlots: splitting large logs to meet the 5-inch threshold can be impractical, chipping is costly, and enforcing a strict diameter rule at the local level could be difficult. One committee member said they would vote against adopting the rule as written because it could criminalize common disposal methods for some landowners.

A compromise was proposed to remove the “no greater than 5 inches in diameter” phrase from the Category 4 permit language (which addresses larger, non-routine burns) while staff consult with the Department of Environmental Services on the origin and statutory basis of the diameter standard. The committee granted a waiver of the filing deadline and postponed the item for one month to allow that follow-up. The committee chair and agency staff noted the state was under a burn ban at the time of the hearing, so immediate burning activity was restricted.

The committee did not adopt the rules at the meeting; final action was deferred to a future meeting after the agency and staff provide additional background on the relationship between RSA 227-L:17, Env-A 1001.03, and the proposed rule text.