Personal Stories

Every day, real people experience real harm and a reduced quality of life due to involuntary exposure to wood smoke.

We believe it’s important to convey the human side of this issue as well as the science.

Read and share wood smoke stories

The following are stories that people have shared with us. Has wood smoke pollution affected you? Use the form below to share your own wood smoke story.

1 Stories total.

Panic and coughing

…I have 3 neighbors that burn wood and other items in outdoor furnaces and indoor wood stoves…

Air quality deteriorating in a smoke control area

More and more of my neighbours are opening up fires and installing log burners and so of course the air quality is deteriorating into a smoggy mud most of the time.

Suffering in a smoke control area

We live in Stoke on Trent which is a smoke control area. The very large house behind me often has four wood-burning stoves going at any one time, all day every day…

Fire pit smokes out house

…My neighbors insist upon having fires constantly. My home completely fills with smoke…

At a great loss I moved

…I have significant heart disease and cannot believe there aren’t more laws to protect people from this pollution… The Burn Wise initiatives are a complete joke…

A “nightmare” in Victoria, Australia

…their chimney is at my eye level about 15 feet off my verandah, living room and bedroom…

Apartment smells like smoke

…His wood burning makes our entire apartment smell like smoke even when all of the windows and doors are closed…

Forced to leave Dundas, Ontario

…Our problems started in 2007 when a close neighbor started outdoor burns in his backyard using a vintage wood stove with an attached, homemade 4.5' smokestack…