Massachusetts · statute · Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 48 · 102 active provisions
Section 1. Selectmen may annually, in March or April, appoint firewards, and shall forthwith give them notice thereof. Whoever neglects, within seven days after such notice, to file with the town clerk his acceptance or refusal of the office shall, unless excused by the selectmen, forfeit ten dollars.
Section 2. If a fire breaks out, the firewards shall immediately repair thereto, and shall wear a suitable badge of office.
Section 3. Three or more firewards present at a place which is in immediate danger from fire, or if there are not three of them present the selectmen or the mayor and the aldermen present, or in their absence two or more of the civil officers present, or in their absence two or more of the chief military officers of th…
Section 4. If a city by its city council or a town accepts this section or has accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws, the official of a fire department in command at a fire shall have exclusively the power conferred by the preceding section.
Section 5. If such demolition of a building is the means of stopping the fire or if the fire stops before it comes to it, the owner shall be entitled to recover reasonable compensation from the town unless it was the building in which the fire started. Such compensation shall be determined and recovered under chapter s…
Section 6. Such firewards or other officers may require assistance for extinguishing a fire and for removing furniture, goods or merchandise from a building on fire or in danger of fire. They may appoint guards to secure the same, may require assistance for demolishing a building, and suppress tumults and disorders at…
Section 7. They may direct the stations and operations of the enginemen with their engines and of all other persons, for the purpose of extinguishing the fire. Whoever refuses or neglects to obey such orders shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten dollars.
Section 8. The mayor in cities, subject to charter provisions, and, except as provided in section forty-three, the selectmen in towns, shall annually, in June, appoint a forest warden, and forthwith give notice thereof to the commissioner of environmental management, in this chapter called the forester. The same person…
Section 9. If a fire occurs in woodland, the forest warden of the town, or his designee or of a town containing woodland endangered by such fire, at a place in immediate danger therefrom, may set back fires and take necessary precautions to prevent its spread.
Section 10. The forest warden may appoint deputies to assist him in his duties and may discharge them; and he or his deputies may, if in their judgment there is danger from a forest fire, employ assistance or require any person in their town between the ages of eighteen and fifty to aid in its extinguishment or prevent…
Section 11. Whoever, without sufficient cause, wilfully refuses or neglects to assist or to allow the use of his property as required by the preceding section, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five nor more than one hundred dollars and may also be imprisoned for not more than two months.
Section 12. Payment shall be made to forest wardens, their deputies, and persons assisting them, and for property used under their direction at a forest fire, at a rate prescribed by the town or, in default of its action thereon, by the selectmen. No such payment shall be made until an itemized account, approved by the…
Section 13. No person shall set, maintain or increase a fire in the open air at any time except by permission, covering a period not exceeding two days from the date thereof, granted by the forest warden or chief of the fire department in cities and towns, or, in cities having such an official, the fire commissioner; p…
Section 15. The forester, the state fire warden or any duly authorized assistant, the forest warden in a town or the official performing the duties of a forest warden in a city, or any duly appointed deputy forest warden, the director of the division of fisheries and wildlife, an environmental police officer or deputy…
Section 16. For the purposes of this section and section sixteen A, the following words and phrases shall have the following meanings: ''Forest or woods road'', any permanently maintained road that is not a highway, the primary use of which is access to forest lands for the purpose of forest management or presuppressio…
Section 16A. Every owner, lessee, tenant or occupant of lands, or their agents or employees, or any such person or entity holding rights or interest in said lands or the timber thereon, or of any rights or interests therein, except electric, telephone and telegraph companies, who cuts or permits the cutting of brush, w…
Section 17. Any person who cuts or causes to be cut trees, brush or undergrowth within the limits of any highway, shall dispose of the slash and brush then and there resulting from such cutting in such a manner that the same will not remain on the ground within the limits of said highway.
Section 18. Electric, telephone and telegraph companies which, at the time of erecting their transmission lines, cut or cause to be cut brush, wood or timber on land which borders upon woodland of another, or upon a highway or railroad location, shall dispose of the slash caused by such cutting in such a manner that th…
Section 19. The forester, or any duly authorized assistant, the state fire warden and the forest wardens in cities and towns are hereby authorized to inspect wood or lumber operations, and also the rights of way of electric, telephone and telegraph companies' transmission lines, to determine whether the slash and brush…
Section 20. Violation of any provision of sections 16 to 18, inclusive, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $250 nor more than $2,500.
Section 21. Whoever operates in or adjacent to forest or grasslands any equipment or vehicle which burns any spark producing material as fuel, unless the same is provided with a suitable spark arrester approved by the United States Department of Forestry, shall be punished by a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $…
Section 22. The forester or his assistants or the state fire warden may inspect all appliances described in the preceding section to determine if they are provided with suitable spark arresters.
Section 23. Towns may construct, in co-operation with other towns or with the commonwealth, forest fire observations towers, the situation and construction of which shall be subject to the direction of the forester.
Section 24. Money appropriated by a town under section eleven of chapter forty, for the prevention of forest fires, and all fines received under sections eleven, thirteen and twenty-six of this chapter and section nine of chapter two hundred and sixty-six shall be expended by the forest warden, under the supervision of…
Section 25. Except as provided in section twenty-four, every forest warden shall have sole charge of the extinguishment of forest fires in his city or town. He shall investigate the causes and extent of forest fires and the injury done thereby, and shall report thereon to the forester at such times and in such form as…