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Don't Light Your Fireplace (Before Reading This Post)!
Photo by kamilpetran via Shutterstock
It's hard to go back to work after a long holiday weekend, so if you get home tonight and feel like unwinding with a stiff drink in front of a roaring fire in your fireplace, you might want to double check to see if a "No-Burn Alert" is going to dampen your plans.
Thanks to ongoing issues with air quality in Southern California, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is running a program called "Check Before You Burn," which prohibits burning wood in fireplaces when the forecast includes unhealthful air. The program spans all of Orange County and includes the non-desert portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and runs November to February.
The AQMD updates their "Check Before You Burn" map online daily, and they also offer email alerts, a zip code look-up, and a toll-free number so would-be wood burners can know if they are good to go. (Today, sorry Riverside County--one section there is under a no-burn order.)
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
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