Personally, I love the smell of bonfires and they invoke for me wonderful childhood memories of scout camps and November 5th celebrations. Nor would I have any qualms about the occasional inhalation of smoke.
But I accept others think differently and it is very anti social of your neighbours to be having fires during this mini heatwave. I take it they were garden bonfires and not barbecues which would put a different slant on it.
I probably have about two bonfires a year, always choosing a calm day with cool, dull grey weather - a day when nobody would be sitting in their garden and no washing would be pegged out.
That sounds reasonable, and distance between gardens and homes is also a factor. I am not sure if the smoke was coming from bonfires or campfires. One of the sources of smoke seemed to be re curing meat for hours, but it wasn't a BBQ. Of course, now the sunny warm weather has ceased, so has the smoke. It did ruin the last days of summer for me.
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Are bonfires legal where you are? Probably. In the UK we are not allowed to burn household "waste" and we are instructed not to be a "nuisance". Parks, public spaces and some allotments prohibit fires.
We have had some local neighbour battles about bonfires, bbqs and wood stoves - but they are allowed. We usually just counsel to be considerate to others near by. I live in a valley do smoke doesn't really dissipate and it gets on people's nerves.
Mum's For Lungs are campaigning to have recreational (non-essential) wood burning banned.
The smell I can't stand is burning plastic or treated wood. A NDN burnt her whole shed during the first lockdown as the dump was closed. Choking black smoke poured out of her garden for weeks. Ugg. Luckily it was a one off. Month.
Thanks for those links, very useful and the shed-burning you encountered sounds awful. A whole month of smoke would be completely unacceptable. I really hope nobody has suffered ill health-effects from that.
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I wonder if many people know (or care!) that it’s illegal to leave your car engine idling on a public road, detailed below:
Also known as stationary idling, Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 prohibits leaving your engine on when it is not needed. This act enforces Rule 123 of the Highway Code, which states “you must not leave a vehicle’s engine running unnecessarily while that vehicle is stationary on a public road”.
Our elderly neighbours heat their house with a Rayburn and burn anything that's combustible. At least twice a day on all but the hottest of days our garden is inundated in black, acrid smoke. My bedding smelt of it yesterday - it must have been hung on the line before the recent heatwave. We are already discussing moving because of it and the impact it is having on our health and our 4month old daughter. What can we do about it? Nothing.
This sounds really awful for anyone forced to breathe in the smoke and pollutants. I would feel the same. Sometimes complaining is difficult when it is only one person who is complaining, but could this not be a public health matter?
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I am also a reprobate bonfirerer. I only burn garden waste, I choose a day when the wind is blowing away from the cottages and when no one has washing out. I do leave it burning for several days, it slowly burns with only a wisp of smoke. I live in a very rural area so I only have two neighbours, both of whom have occasional bonfires themselves. I find the barbeque one of them has just outside my kitchen window much more offensive. I enjoy the autumnal smell of a bonfire and the ash from the bonfire goes onto the garden. Air pollution from vehicles does far more damage.
I think living in a very rural area does make it much less likely that your smoke would irritate anyone.
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@clematisdorset I had a look on the government website and it states that bonfires should be investigated by your local council if they are a statutory nuisance. I think it defines that as if they are a regular occurrence, if they blow smoke into your garden or prevent you from opening your windows. Given the recent weather I think you have every right to complain if it continues. The local fire service might help you out as well.
We are only allowed bonfires down our allotment site from the end of October-march and they must be watched at all times. It's really only the older folk who burn anything down there now, others just put it on a compost heap.
Thank you @thevictorian, it sounds as though I could have complained. The gardens are so close together here that someone smoking a cigarette from 4 houses away can be detected!
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I think what it boils down to is good manners and what's deemed acceptable in the circumstances. If i lived in the middle of a town or along a terrace of houses then i'd simply assume Bonfires were 100% out of the question any time.
I agree @McRazz and would include BBQs and campfires etc too. Too many risks involved. There needs to be government intervention and legislation to stamp it out.
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Many thanks for posting this link.
Awful to see the level of pollution in places like Poland and northern Italy.
I'm pleased to see that my area is at the safe air level .... long may it last.
Bee x
A single bee creates just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime