Localized harm

Personal wood smoke stories

Smoke pours out of the chimney of a yellow house next to some trees.

Real people experience real harm and a reduced quality of life due to wood smoke pollution.

If you are affected by someone else’s wood burning, you are not alone.

How is wood smoke affecting you?

Neighbors of wood burners have shared the following stories with us. Use the form below to share your own wood smoke story.

1 Stories total.

COPD and a wood-burning neighbor

I can’t have my windows open and my whole area smells of burning wood…

Smoke in a Welsh village

…When we came here, the air was fresh. Now, more and more of our neighbours have taken to wood burning…

Made ill in Toronto

This job entailed exposure to quite a few houses with wood burning fireplaces or outdoor fire pits/brush burning…

Wood-burning restaurant in Toronto

The smell and noxious smoke are persistent every day 24/7 — in a very densely populated area.

Five years in Hell

The wood burning in Bethel Park, PA was sometimes 24/7, day in day out, all hours of the day and night, all year round…

Surrounded by wood burners in BC

Over the past 25 years the population of our valley has exploded and with it, the use of wood for home heating…

Smoke hovers under the ceiling

My neighbors use their fireplace all day every day from October to May…

It was a nightmare

We had to move from our house that we loved…

Misery in New Zealand

They burn 365 days of the year, including up to 14 hours a day in summer and 24 in winter..…

Tell your story

Does your neighbor’s wood burning affect you? We want to hear about it!  

Sharing your wood smoke story helps to increase awareness of the problem.

We only ask for your name and email address so we can contact you about your story. We don’t use this information for any other purpose.

We’ll only publish your (first) name if you tell us to. Email addresses are never published.

If you’d like to include a photo or video, tell us in the text of your message. We will contact you with information on how you can send it to us.
Thank you! Your story has been sent.
We’ll be in touch soon.
Sorry! Something went wrong while submitting the form.