Winter brings on the season of heating with wood

To reduce neighborhood smoke impacts, wood burners should follow clean burning practices

Wood burning stoves and fireplaces are the chief source of area air pollution and the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency wants all wood burners to follow cleaner burning techniques and check for wood burning restrictions before using devices. These techniques and restrictions help to reduce harmful smoke emissions, and one of them is relatively simple.

After a 20-minute startup period, go outside and take a look at your chimney,” Spokane Clean Air public information officer Lisa Woodard said. “You should only see heat waves or at the most, just a wisp of smoke.”

If there's more smoke, Woodard said adjustments should to be made, such as opening the damper to provide more air to the fire. Overloading the firebox also inhibits good airflow, so fires should be kept small.

Wood that is not properly dried will create more smoke and less heat, therefore wasting money. It takes at least a year to properly dry firewood, Woodard said.

Exposure to fine particles is linked to a variety of significant health problems ranging from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease. Wood smoke can trigger asthma attacks, cause difficulty breathing and make lung and heart problems worse for thousands of people in Spokane County living with lung disease.

Keeping chimney smoke in check can also save money by avoiding potential fires. Too much chimney smoke is prohibited in Washington. The state's Opacity Rule limits visible smoke emissions to 20 percent opacity. What this looks like can viewed online at http://www.spokanecleanair.org/wood_heating.asp.

“The goal is to reduce harmful wood smoke in our neighborhoods,” Woodard said. “Aside from switching to a cleaner supplemental heat source, burning as cleanly as possible is the key.”

When air quality deteriorates and particulates approach federal health-based standards, Spokane Clean Air will issue temporary wood-burning bans. The first stage, yellow, shuts down fireplaces and old, non-certified wood stoves and inserts, primarily those build before 1992. It air quality worsens, a Stage II (Red) ban will be implemented restricting all wood-burning devices, with exemptions being given to people who have no other heat source than wood.

To find out burning conditions, residents can call the 24-hour burning information line at 477-4710, or go online to http://www.spokanecleanair.org. Residents can also sign up for a free service to receive e-mail notifications when wood burning bans are issue. The link for this is also through Spokane Clean Air's Web site.