Terms of Service

These terms are an agreement between you and Fractal SAAS Inc., an Ontario corporation carrying on business as FirePermit.Online (“FirePermit.Online”, “we”, “us”). They govern your use of our websites and applications (the “Service”).

Please read section 2 carefully. It explains who actually issues your burn permit, and section 5 explains the limits of what a permit allows. Those two points matter more than anything else here.

If you do not agree to these terms, do not use the Service.

The Service has two kinds of user, and these terms apply to both:

You must be at least the age of majority in the place you live to hold a permit through the Service, or have the consent of a parent or guardian.

We are a software provider. We are not a fire department, a municipality, or any kind of public authority, and we do not issue burn permits.

Your permit is issued by your municipality or its fire department under that municipality’s own open-air burning by-law. They set the rules, the permit types, the fees, the conditions and the boundaries of any restricted zone. They decide whether a permit is granted, suspended, revoked or refunded. We operate the system they use to do it.

This means questions about whether you may burn, what your by-law requires, why a permit was refused, or whether a fee should be returned are matters for your fire department, not for us. We will help you reach them; we cannot decide those things.

It also means your department, not FirePermit.Online, is the authority on the record. Where we display by-law wording, fees, permit types or restricted areas, we are displaying what the department has given us.

You may sign in with an email link or a supported third-party sign-in. You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure, because access to it is access to your permits.

Tell us promptly at info@firepermit.online if you believe someone else has access to your account.

Not every permit has an account attached. Staff can issue a permit at the counter to someone who has never used the Service, and permits carried over from a department’s previous system may not be linked to anyone until the holder claims them.

You must give information that is true and complete, and keep it current while a permit is in force. That specifically includes the property address, the location where burning will happen, and a phone number the department can reach you on.

The phone number matters more than the rest. If your department declares a burn ban, that number is how they reach you. An unreachable permit holder is a safety problem, not an administrative one.

Submitting an application is not the same as holding a permit. A permit that requires payment is not in force until payment completes, and until then it does not authorise anything.

This is the most important term in this document.

Holding a valid permit does not authorise you to light a fire when your by-law, your department, or conditions on the day forbid it. A burn ban suspends burning under every permit for as long as it lasts. An air-quality advisory, high winds, or any other prohibition in your by-law applies regardless of what permit you hold.

The Service may show current conditions — air quality, wind, fire risk, and whether a ban is in effect. That display is provided for information only. It is drawn from public sources, including Environment and Climate Change Canada, and from what your department has told us. It may be delayed, incomplete, or wrong, and it cannot know that your chief declared a local ban an hour ago and announced it on the radio.

Never treat a reading on this Service as authorisation. Before you light a fire, it is your responsibility to satisfy yourself that burning is permitted under your by-law and safe in the conditions. If you are not sure, contact your fire department.

You remain responsible for any fire on your property and for any damage arising from it, whether or not a permit was in force. A permit is permission to burn lawfully. It is not insurance.

When you apply, you are asked to confirm that you have read your department’s open-air burning by-law and that you agree to these terms. Both confirmations are recorded against your permit with the date and time.

Those records may be relied on by your department, including in an enforcement dispute. Please do not confirm either one unless it is true.

Where a permit is issued over the counter, the record shows how the acknowledgement was actually obtained — for example that staff provided the by-law and you agreed in person. We do not record a counter-issued permit as though you had ticked the boxes yourself.

Permit fees are set by your municipality. The amount is shown before you commit to anything, and some permit types are free.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card details. Payment is collected on behalf of your municipality and settles to the municipality’s own account.

Refunds are your municipality’s decision, under their policy. We can process a refund the municipality authorises; we cannot grant one they have not. In particular, a burn ban does not automatically entitle you to a refund — that depends on your by-law.

Where a fee is paid in person at the fire hall, the money is handled by the department and the Service records that it was collected. We are not party to that payment.

You agree not to:

The Service, including its software, design and text, belongs to us or our licensors. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable right to use it for the purpose of obtaining and managing burn permits.

By-law wording, fee schedules and department information displayed in the Service belong to the relevant municipality. Public information about a municipality reproduced elsewhere on our sites is presented as public information about a public body, with its source.

Information you supply remains yours. You give us permission to use it to operate the Service, which necessarily includes providing it to your municipality — see our Privacy Policy.

We aim to keep the Service available, but we do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may suspend it for maintenance, and we may change or discontinue features.

If the Service is unavailable when you need a permit, your fire department can still issue one directly. The Service being down does not prevent a department from doing its job, and it does not make burning lawful when it otherwise would not be.

Except as these terms expressly say, and except for any rights you have under consumer protection legislation that cannot be excluded, the Service is provided “as is”. We do not warrant that the information it displays — including conditions, air quality, restricted zones or by-law text — is accurate, current or complete.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue or data.

To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Service is limited to the total amount you paid through the Service in the twelve months before the claim arose.

For clarity, and consistent with section 2, we are not liable for a decision of your municipality or fire department, for the content of a by-law, or for the consequences of a fire.

You may stop using the Service at any time and ask us to close your account.

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, or at the request of the municipality whose permits it holds.

Closing your account does not cancel a permit. A permit is a municipal record, and it remains with your municipality.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada that apply there, and the courts of Ontario have jurisdiction.

If you live somewhere else and your local consumer protection law gives you rights or a forum that cannot be contracted out of, this section does not take those away.

We may update these terms. If a change is material we will give reasonable notice, by email or in the Service, before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the updated terms.

The terms you agreed to when a permit was issued remain the terms recorded against that permit.

Fractal SAAS Inc., carrying on business as FirePermit.Online — 64 Hurontario St, Suite 200, Collingwood, Ontario L9Y 2L6, Canada. info@firepermit.online

For anything about your permit itself — whether you may burn, a refund, a correction, or an enforcement matter — contact your fire department. Their details are on your permit and on your municipality’s page in the Service.