About time they called an alert. The air has smelled awful ever since the rain ended. We had to keep our kids indoors this weekend because the air outside was so caustic.

There is absolutely no reason to have a spare the air day today. It's just a way for the air board to flex their muscle.

The bay area air management is made up of over 300 people. Just to tell us not to burn wood. No wonder our Gov. is broke. This should be the first gov. agency to see the hatchet.

Today's alert is not surprising, and if the BAAQMD is true to form expect this to continue through Thanksgiving. This process will repeat for Christmas and New Years as well. The three days when we traditionally have a fire are always target days for them. You have never seen any of these people on your ballot so they are free to do as they please and insulated from our disapproving votes.

Maybe the air pollution is so bad this week because everyone is home burning wood all day? We were gagging just walking on the sidewalk in front of our house this morning. I could not see any smoke pouring out of any neighbor's smoke stack, so I'm guessing the pollution had not dissipated from last night's burns.

Here's a tip: if you must light up, do it on a rainy day. On clear low-wind days, the smoke just accumulates near the ground and chokes your kids and your neighbors' kids.

Right now, the weather forecast says the pollution is going to get worse before it gets better.

What an enormous farce.
No repremand for leaf blowers, lawn mowers, resturants, trucks and smoking cars? They contibute much more to the pollution than wood fires.
But people who want to heat their house and enjoy peaceful, beautiful and comforting fires in their fireplaces for a couple of hours in an evening can be turned by disgruntled neighbors and fined heavily without recourse.
I thought the gestapo ended after WWII.
What can be done to disband this organization that seems to be able to do whatever it wants and arbitrarily declare no burning days?
I walked at Shoreline today and could see from Oakland to Morgan Hill!!
Fireplace users have rights also.

If you really want to have a fire, spark it up. If they come knocking on your door, your furnace is broken and tell them to take a hike. Burning is allowed if it is your primary heat source...

I've lived in places over the years (25+) where wood was my only heat, in the house, tent, yurt or whatever. Almost all of the pollution I see, and smell, in the Bay Area is from people burning garbage trees that are still green. They'll spend hours trying to get a soaking wet poplar log that was cut last week to catch. It won't make any heat and it stinks. For the uninitiated, the wood should have dried for at least a year, to start.
A fireplace is one of, if not the, poorest ways to heat anything. It has to pull in more cold air than the hot air it blows up the chimney, or you get a houseful of smoke. Even a firepit in a teepee is better.

Modern day wood stove type fireplaces are very efficient and keep the warmth radiating all over.

The Bay Air Gestapo is at it again. They need to be stopped.

Here's a thought: "What happens to all the smoke the thousands of forest fires caused by lightning strikes every year"? These fires burn more wood in a day than everyone in California in one year!

Say hello to the Nanny State!


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

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