Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke

Fire Away - Author Mark Wessel shipped his outdoor fireplace to the dump last fall as a way to help clear the air.

In Canada we love our fires, with fond memories each summer of sitting around everything from a campfire in the wild to a fire pit in the back yard. It’s a positive, bonding experience we typically associate with slowing things down and spending quality time with family and friends. Then in late summer when cooler days and nights prevail, many of us head inside, replacing that outdoor fire with an indoor one.

Apart from the social benefits of sitting next to a fire, those glowing embers seem to have a calming effect on us as well: something I suspect we have intrinsically known for thousands of years dating back to prehistoric times. And we now have qualitative evidence coming from a University of Alabama study conducted in 2014 that watching a fire can noticeably lower your blood pressure.

In the wake of that study, some enterprising companies in the business of selling outdoor and indoor fireplaces have played up the calming influence of fires as yet another reason to purchase a fireplace or stove, if you don’t already own one. Unfortunately what’s missing from this cozy picture, are the health hazards of burning fires, especially wood burning fires.

Health agencies around the world, including Health Canada have identified an alarming number of toxic chemical substances given off by wood smoke. Hazards that include: microscopic particulates that can be inhaled deep into the lungs and contribute to a range of respiratory illnesses; carbon monoxide that can cause fatigue, headaches and dizziness; nitrogen oxide which contributes to shortness of breath; hydrocarbons which can damage the lungs; and a surprisingly long list of other toxic substances. The list for gas powered appliances might not be as long, but they too pose health hazards, emitting substances such as nitrogen oxide, a respiratory irritant.

The hazards associated with wood burning fires are even greater with indoor fires in an enclosed setting, especially when using open fireplaces or older wood burning stoves. With so called ‘airtight’ wood burning fireplaces and stoves, less smoke is supposed to vent into the room. But it doesn’t change the fact that every time you open the door of one of these wood burning appliances, a blast of smoke does escape. And the smoke you do vent through your chimney doesn’t simply disappear, but is dispersed into your neighbourhood.

According to Dr. Gary Fuller, an expert in air quality at Kings College in London, wood burning fires – particularly in urban settings where there is a much greater concentration of burning taking place, are making the air we breathe as toxic and dirty as London’s air in the 50’s and 60’s when open coal fires were the only source of heat for most homes.

Fortunately, for those of us who love our fires but care about the environment as well, there are practical solutions to all of this. When the University of Alabama released their study on the impact of sitting in front of a fire, perhaps the most interesting finding (a finding that fireplace and wood burning stove manufacturers would rather you didn’t know about) was the fact that the blood pressure of the participants in that study went down while they were watching a virtual fire as opposed to a real one. In other words, a fire not unlike the one you can watch any time the notion suits you on Netflix or YouTube.  

Because the study was conducted using a simulated fire, one certainty is that the smell of the fire never contributed to reducing the blood pressure of participants. Even more interesting was the discovery that the blood pressures of participants dropped significantly more when watching a simulated fire accompanied by a crackling sound, as opposed to viewing a fire without any sound.

So the takeaway for consumers with fall around the corner, is that the healthiest, least expensive way to get your ‘fire fix’ is to literally fire up your television or computer. Electric fireplaces (including those with sound) represent another healthy solution, thanks to significant improvements in display technology. And what I really find exciting, is that we’re on the cusp of a whole new product category: holographic 3D fireplaces that have the potential to make you think you’re sitting in front of a real fire. Except unlike that real fire, you’ll be able to breathe easy.

Author's Note: It's only a matter of time before holographic fire such as this one becomes mainstream.