Free bus rides?

I bet it is really the pulpmills

I thought out west (Isle Pierre) was the best spot for heavy industrial? We shouldn't be getting any bad air from that direction.

A forest fire is not heavy industry. Puts heavy industry to shame while it is burning. Like comparing a nuclear bomb to a car bomb.

Woodstoves? Nasty, eh?

gus, gus, gus...I was trying point out the fact that anything that goes into the air west of PG is going to end up in PG's airshed. I wasn't trying to compare nukes to car bombs.

Take it from an expert: Smoke from burning wood is not noxious, harmful or a health hazard, I breathe it all fall, winter and spring - my neighbours have wood burning - so I know first hand.

faxman, faxman, faxman ..... I was trying to point out that there is a many fold factor of magnitude difference between a forest fire and smoke belching from industry.

Remember .... we "get rid" of the pollution by dilution. The further one gets away from the source, the less polluted the air becomes.

For a relative small source amount the pollution might be detectable across the fence (bonfire in the back yard) but will not be detectable a block away and will play zilch role in impacting the PG air shed. It will only impact immediate neighbours and it will do that based on one of several factors such as wind speed and direction. You will be affected one day and the neighbour on the other side will be affected on other days.

Take that up to an industrial level and the source amount is 1,000-fold at least and the air can be affected a few miles away and will again be determined by wind speed and direction as key determinants.

Move that up to a forest fire of major proportions which has increased the source probably 1,000 fold to an industrial source and the effect will be felt 100+ km away. Which communities will be the main recipients will also depend on wind speed and direction. We are now also talking about a source that will typically rise to a much higher altitude than the typical industrial point source and will be affected more by regional wind roses rather than local wind roses as a result.

Make it a volcano, and you have the European situation with the eruption of the volcano in Iceland impacting flights most of northwestern Europe.

As they say, it is all about size and volume of output.

So, Prince George, you are that littel kid that used to sit around the campfire and stay put when the smoke stopped rising and started blowing over to your side of the firepit while everyone else moved because their eyes were burning. LOL

Not noxious, eh? It is all in the eyes of the beholder. We are all humans and each and every single one of us has different pain thresholds, different defense mechanisms to foreign bodies, etc.

I get hives when I eat too many strawberries. Nothing wrong with strawberries. I just have to limit my intake of them. I get a choking feeling when I eat a hazelnut. Hazelnuts are perfectly good for people. Don't happen to agree with my body to much though.

The same with particulates in the air. Based on the masses (epidemiology) it will affect people not at all, slightly, give them major discomfort, kill them in the immediate future or will be a major cause of death in the long run.

This is not about you or me, this is about everyone.

Of course, we can let all those people die off and develop a smoke resistant cohort ... :-)

Sorry Gus, my post was pure sarcasm!

I have complained often to those who enforce bylaws to make my air breathable when neighbours fire up their wood burning heating appliances when it gets cold outside! To no avail, of course!

I have chronic sinusitis. I concluded from the nonchalant non-action that wood smoke and particulates generated by wood stoves are not a health hazard.

If they were the city officials would ban them in the city where people are already connected to hydro and natural gas.

Therefore the sarcasm.