By an edhat reader
A few minutes ago my house filled up with an intense smoke smell and I think I see a little ash.
Is this from the prescribed burn in the Santa Ynez Valley? I’m off W. Mission Street.
Smoke from Prescribed Burn?
Anonymous
October 12, 2022, 2:45 am
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Anytime you smell/breathe in wood smoke, it’s just like you’re puffing on a cigarette —– only worse. I hope you closed up your house and cranked up an air purifier that filters PM2.5. The particulate matter (PM2.5) is no joke. Inhaling such is detrimental to your lungs, heart and brain.
If you even smell wood smoke, it’s worse than smoking a cigarette? Not sure that’s at all true. Please provide some data to back that.
TAGDES – do you have a cite to that study? I’d be interested to read it.
Also, burning 10 lbs of wood in a fireplace is no where NEAR the same as “anytime you smell” wood smoke.
Sacjon, I can add to your point that you are also not inhaling all the smoke from the fire. Some people inhale more than 30 cigarettes per day.
LCP – great point. I think the hysteria here stems from anger at neighbors who insist on burning wood or having bbqs. It’s easy to “justify” and cite “studies” to be taken out of context in support of your beef with the Joneses.
I agree wood smoke, when inhaled for prolonged periods, is very harmful. Any combusted material is. BUT…. to say it’s worse than smoking a cigarette to even smell wood smoke, is just wrong.
How many non-smokers are suffering from lung cancer because they went camping?
Jon, you should learn to figure out how to Google a question on your own and you could just look it up rather than arguing with every body. “wood smoke and your health” EPA.
TAG – if you make a claim based on a study, you should show your work. Don’t be lazy and expect everyone to do your job for you. Given your refusal to back your claim, I call BS.
OK…the EPA has shown that operating a fireplace for an hour and burning 10 lbs of wood generates 4,300 times more carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons than 30 cigarettes. Minibeast is correct.
I think it depends a lot on the fireplace. Newer wood burning stoves are designed to run cleaner. However, all wood will decompose into the components it was made from whether it’s burned or allowed to rot. Wood is a fully renewable resource and a great source of energy. In addition, huge amounts of wood must burn every year to maintain healthy forests. We could do a lot more to collect dead and overgrown vegetation and burn it for energy. In less populous areas like sb county, it works out pretty well, but probably not a good idea in more densely populated areas like la. In any case, people are going to increasingly turn to fireplaces to stay warm as an alternative to increasing costs of gas and electricity. Burning that old tree you cut down in the back yard could save $100 on your heating bill!
“The components of wood smoke and cigarette smoke are quite similar, and many components of both are carcinogenic. EPA researchers estimate the lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke to be 12 times greater than from a similar amount of cigarette smoke.”
What You Should Know About Residential Wood Smoke …https://www.marincounty.org › f
Wood smoke is by definition the combustion of natural products. Cigarettes, on the other hand, contain chemicals and paper mixed with the natural product (tobacco) that are much more carcinogenic than tobacco (or cannibus for that matter). So I doubt that wood fires are that dangerous in the relatives scheme of things.
Wood smoke by RHS should state these natural products…benzene, formaldehyde, dioxin, pyrene, carbon monoxide and a host of others. All of these can kill you in the relative scheme of things.
LOL, most of you have no problem smoking a bowl…. I can’t believe the whiners on Edhat.