On calm, clear winter nights, our town fills with blue smoke from woodstoves and fireplaces. My eyes burn, head aches and I awake with severe congestion. Some years this happens a few times, but this past year it happened for two months straight.
Our local air district reports that the air quality is acceptable, but they use a 24-hour average to make that determination. If you look at the hourly data, you see that the nights are awful, even though the smoke clears during the windy parts of the day.
My neighbor has lung cancer despite never smoking. The community has been 'working on it' for decades now. But the only idea - subsidizing replacement woodstoves - takes care of less than 50 houses a year . . . and we have over 1500 to go. It does not look like the problem will be solved in my life time.
