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The first mandatory no-burn alert in the Bay Area resulted in nine residents getting caught for lighting wood fires. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District will send warning letters to the violators of the Spare the Air alert, which was in effect from noon Wednesday to noon Thursday. Repeat offenders can be fined hundreds or thousands of dollars.Six of the nine violators were reported by neighbors, and three were detected by air district inspectors out in the field, said Aaron Richardson, a district spokesman.Regardless of how a violation is reported, an air district inspector must witness the burning to...

(11-19) 16:21 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The fireplace police descended on the Bay Area on Wednesday. For the first time ever, residential fires are illegal under a new law, passed in July, that bans home burning on winter season Spare the Air days. The first such ban took effect at noon. Seventy inspectors from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District planned to spend the day and evening patrolling residential neighborhoods, looking for telltale chimney wisps. Violators will get warnings by mail. Repeat offenders face fines of as much as $2,000. The fireplace police say they are determined to keep...

Mention air pollution, and what comes to mind? Factories. Oil refineries. Auto tailpipes. Now Bay Area smog regulators are trying to crack down on another source that they say is just as significant, even if beloved: home fireplaces. Citing growing medical research that soot causes more severe health problems than was previously realized, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District is proposing a ban on all wood burning in fireplaces and wood stoves in the nine Bay Area counties during winter "Spare the Air" nights. --snip-- If approved, fireplace police would enforce the rules, and neighbors would be encouraged to...

Under the auspices of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, "public hearings" are being held to determine the fate of the family hearth. Those of us who live in rural areas have a pretty good idea what the outcome is going to be. Still, in the interest of basic fairness, we'd at least like the decision-makers to employ the rudiments of the scientific method, rather than riding the winds of energy dependence and global warming hysteria, before coming to a final decision. The scientific method follows a rigid methodology. Ask a question. Do background research. Construct a hypothesis. Test...

Throwing a few logs on the fire on a nippy evening, or boosting a home's market appeal by advertising its wood-burning fireplace, could go the way of the coal chute and the ice box for many Southern Californians if newly proposed air quality regulations are adopted. As part of air pollution plans designed to meet federal deadlines, South Coast Air Quality Management District officials have proposed a ban on wood-burning fireplaces in all new homes in Los Angeles, Orange and portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In addition, on winter days when pollution spikes, wood-fueled blazes in all fireplaces...

Ever wondered how to make a real wood fire in your fireplace, with beautiful tall flames, which draws nicely, and warms the room up too? Do the fires which you have made not look like those in the movies, photographs or in cozy paintings and such? It's an easy task with this method I learned in a book written by a man who grew up in early 19th Century Loudoun County, Virginia. Joseph Janney, in his 90s in the 1890s wrote a little text for his children and grandchildren to read about his life as a child in frontier America....

<p>Even though local air authorities ordered you not to light your fireplace Tuesday, you burned your wood anyway. It was a chilly November evening. But did you get caught? The answer: You don't know.</p> <p>You won't find out for a few days because inspectors for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District don't knock on doors. They mail violation notices.</p>

Air District Clarifies New Fireplace Rules Rule Violators Could Be Fined POSTED: 11:35 PM PST November 10, 2003 UPDATED: 11:19 AM PST November 11, 2003 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- New fireplace regulations that went into effect Nov. 1 mean before people light a log in their fireplace, residents will need to know if it's been declared a "no burn night." Dale Karnes uses his wood burning fireplace solely to heat the room where he and his wife spend most of their time. "We need the heat. It's not because our age or anything, this room is like a tomb in...

Today, I had lots of card board boxes and decided to burn them in the fireplace rather then fill up the garbage can. For an hour, this was working rather well and I was enjoying watching the fire. I still do not understand why that last batch was different, but the fire got very hot. While watching it, I started to worry about the front glass with such a hot fire, since it was making some unusual noises. Just to be safe, I went into the kitchen and filled a pot with water. Not once have I even heard of...