City council needs to clear the air on hazardous firepits

It wouldn’t be spring in Calgary without complaints about firepits.

Twelve years ago, city council brought in a tobacco smoking ban out of concern for public health. Five years ago, the ban was extended to outdoor areas where children are present. Last month, council voted to outlaw public smoking of marijuana once it becomes legal, in part because of public health concerns.

So, what’s the delay in banning firepits?

Does council think one type of smoke is bad for people’s lungs, but not another type? Firepit smoke is just as much a public health hazard as the smoke from cigarettes and marijuana.

Witness the justified complaints from people with asthma, allergies and various other lung diseases. They complain of having to spend summer days and evenings indoors with the windows shut tight against the smoke that would otherwise drift in from a neighbour’s firepit.

The saying goes that your rights end where someone else’s begin. Whatever happened to the right of people with respiratory problems to breathe clean air and their right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property?

It appears their neighbours’ right to stink up fresh air with firepits prevails, forcing people with lung disease to accept the choice of either becoming ill or being virtual prisoners in their own homes.

The Lung Association says, “Environment Canada and Health Canada have identified many hazardous chemical substances in wood smoke.”

These include inhalable particulate matter, declared “a toxic substance under the Environmental Protection Act. These particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs, leading to serious respiratory problems, especially among those with pre-existing cardiopulmonary illness.”

Firepit smoke contains carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen, the latter of which “can cause shortness of breath … especially in people with lung disease such as emphysema and asthma.”

It also contains volatile organic compounds, which cause “respiratory irritation,” formaldehyde, which acts “as a trigger for people with asthma,” polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are believed to be carcinogenic, and dioxins and furans.

The latter two “are highly toxic and can pose health risks even at low exposure levels. Exposure (to) these chemicals has been linked to cancer and developmental disorders.”

The smoke also contains acrolein, which “can cause eye and respiratory tract irritation,” according to the Lung Association.

So why are Calgary’s firepit fiends allowed to poison their neighbours year after year, and nobody does anything about it? If you want to have a firepit, then move to the country where the only person you poison is yourself.

In Calgary’s cheek-by-jowl urban neighbourhoods, firepits are a public health hazard. People with respiratory illnesses have as much right to enjoy the brief summers here as anyone else. Surely, city councillors should treat this issue with the same degree of zeal as they do cigarette smoke and marijuana.

The City of Calgary’s website offers this pathetically wimpy advice on firepits: “Smoke from firepits can cause adverse health effects in some people. Be aware of neighbours that may be negatively impacted to exposure of smoke from outdoor firepits and follow the bylaws related to smoke. Before using your firepit, familiarize yourself with optimal wind conditions and take precautions to prevent smoke from disturbing your neighbours.”

Talk about useless admonitions. If the wind is blowing away from your neighbour’s house, it just means the smoke will travel into someone else’s house on the block. Get real, City of Calgary. And council, stop being hypocrites. You can’t be up in arms about the detrimental effects of cigarette and pot smoke and then just ignore firepit smoke.

The Lung Association says that 600,000 Albertans are living with lung disease. Many of those people live in Calgary, stuck in their houses all through the warm months and praying for the respite of either rainy nights or winter’s return.

That’s no way to live. The only scent that should be drifting into their yards at this time of year is lilacs.