Had enough smoky air, Fresno? Too bad, it’s almost (cough, cough) fireplace season
The other night while scrolling through Twitter — “doomscrolling” the cool kids call it — I came across a post that stopped my index finger in its tracks.
Accompanied by a photo of a fireplace filled with burning logs was a friendly reminder from the Valley Air District that residential wood-burning season goes into effect Sunday.
You know the catch phrase by heart: Check Before You Burn.
In any other year, I probably would’ve kept on scrolling. Just not in (cough, cough) 2020. Not when Fresno and the central San Joaquin Valley are experiencing what an air district official recently described as “the worst air quality wildfire period that we’ve ever had.”
So, on top of smoke from the Creek Fire, for the next four months Valley breathers have to deal with being smoked out by their neighbors?
You’ve got to be (cough) joking.
The simple answer is “Yes.” Wood-burning season in the Valley begins as soon as the calendar flips to November and lasts till the end of February. Yet it’s hardly a free-for-all. In fact, the standards that determine when residents are allowed to use their open fireplaces and wood stoves have become more restrictive, especially in designated air pollution “hot spots” that include Fresno, Madera and Kern counties.
But are they restrictive enough? By the Valley Air District’s own estimates, residential wood-burning makes up about 13% of all wintertime PM 2.5 pollution, the tiny particulate matter linked to respiratory issues, birth defects and cardiovascular disease.
Air quality activists like Tom Frantz, a Shafter almond farmer and co-founder of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, say “No.”
“Wood smoke pollutes the neighborhood, whether it comes from an EPA-registered wood stove or an old-fashioned fireplace,” Frantz said. “It’s a localized problem. You’re going to be exposed to that smoke when you go outside, or inside if you don’t have a tightly insulated home, as we found out with the wildfires.”
In February 2019, the California Air Resources Board adopted a PM 2.5 attainment plan designed to help the Valley meet federal air quality standards. Under that plan, Fresno, Madera and Kern counties were designated as PM 2.5 “hot spots” and thus have tighter regulations than in Tulare, Kings, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin.
Every afternoon during wood-burning season, the air district makes a forecast of the next day’s PM 2.5 levels. If concentrations are expected to be above 12 micrograms per cubic meter in Fresno, Madera and Kern counties (20 in others), burning is restricted to EPA-certified devices. If PM 2.5 concentrations are forecast to be above 35 micrograms per cubic meter in the three “hot spot” counties (65 elsewhere), all burning is prohibited.
‘Clean’ stoves dirtier than diesel trucks
Last winter was the first under the stricter standards. During the 121-day period, 96 of them were declared “Level One curtailment” in Fresno County. Meaning only EPA-approved wood and pellet stoves were allowed to be used. That’s up from 54 days the previous year. There were also four “Level Two” days when all wood burning was prohibited.
At the same time, the number of violations increased from 150 in Fresno County to 202. Violators are subject to a $100 fine (fines increase for repeat offenders), or $50 if they agree to attend Fireplace Compliance School.
While these new wood-burning standards represent progress, air quality activists believe they should be even stricter.
“Those EPA-registered wood stoves are a joke,” Frantz said. “They burn cleaner, but they’re still filthy. They’re extremely dirty wood stoves that happen to be a little bit cleaner if you work them perfectly and follow the directions completely. … Most people don’t.”
How filthy? I found one 2017 study, by the London Air Quality Network at King’s College London, that showed even the newest, cleanest wood-burning stoves can produce six times more particle pollution than a modern diesel truck.
Because the effects of wood smoke are localized, Frantz also believes the two tiered-system should be scrapped in favor of a 12 micrograms-per-cubic-meter standard for all eight counties.
“Wood burning should not be totally banned, but it should be so restricted that you can only burn on the cleanest days of the year,” Frantz said.
Hit pause button on wood burning
I have never been shy about calling out the Valley Air District, whether it be for its antiquated “real-time” pollution monitoring system or blowing off federal Environmental Protection Agency hearings in downtown Fresno.
Consider this more in the vein of gentle prodding.
Due to our topography and meteorological factors, the San Joaquin Valley has a very low tolerance for air pollution. For example, our air quality is similar to Los Angeles even though 10 times as much pollution is emitted in that region. (That’s straight from the air district’s mission statement).
As a result, we should have much stricter wood-burning standards than everywhere else. But we don’t. Other air districts, for example, have a complete ban on uncertified stoves, forbid wood burning for cooking during mandatory curtailments and don’t allow any residential burning whatsoever in October and March.
Those are a few long-term measures for reducing our wintertime particle pollution. In the short-term, the Valley Air District should hit the pause button on all residential wood burning until the Creek Fire no longer impacts our air quality.
Our (cough) lungs could use the break.
