Hi,
I was having a bonfire a few days ago at about 11am, a friend came round to see me and seemed surprised that I didn't wait until evening to do it. It started me wondering is there a "normal" time to have a bonfire? I deliberately waited until I had a spare morning because most of the neighbours are out at work and I don't recall seeing any open windows or washing hanging up. Is there a bonfire etiquette?
Try
Ash
On the allotment I only have a bonfire if I can see planes landing. If I can see planes taking off, the wind is W or SW, and the smoke will blow towards the adjoining houses.
Of course, this may or may not help in your case:-)
Steve
I don't know how long it'll take me to get to your allotment with my garden rubbish :)
Thanks for those links, I find that (in my area) open windows and washing tend to be more prevalent in the evenings when people come home from work, also during the summer a few of them eat in the garden and spend all evening outside. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to light a bonfire, as most of them have BBQ's or patio fires going anyway.
Just don't have a bonfire as they are very antisocial, carsenegenic, and also unecessary now that the LAs collect green rubbish and the amenity sites take both recyclabe and non recyclable rubbish.
You should see the size of my bonfires, there is no way our LA is going to collect that lot. Is woodsmoke carsenegenic?
Mike
Any time after dark on Nov 5th :-)
Mike
If wood smoke is carcinogenic (note the spelling) then it looks pretty bad for those of us who were Scouts and spent many an evening around the camp fire.
It is good practice to take into account the local atmospheric conditions. High pressure days when the air is very stable are a bad time for bonfires because the smoke hardly rises at all it just spreads out to the annoyance of all. Unstable days can be identified when it is bright, breezy and small fluffy cumulus clouds form readily The smoke will then go straight up through the wind gradient and will only worry future generations as there will be plenty of CO2 etc.
The smoke is highly carcinogenic and as well as the usual tar content there will be a high level of dioxins as the combustion temperature is not high enough. Burning rubbish which includes plastics adds an order of magnitude to the toxicity of a wood bonfire. Make sure that you don't get a lungful!
Having said all that we occasionally have a bonfire ourselves. Properly laid and taking account the conditions they blaze up and are down to a pile of glowing embers in short order.
Richard H
Wish mine did, without charging you £25, which I won't pay for. All my relatives are in areas where they collect it for free, and make a profit selling it. I currently have lots of large holes in the ground where a row of conifers were pulled out some years ago, and I put grass clippings in those. For hedge/tree branches, I usually have a good bonfire once a year.
I don't have any relistic way to get it there. I have thought about getting a garden shredder, but a good enough one for such occasional use may not e viable.
Ummm... if you've had a stack of rubbish laid for a while before you burn it, could you please check before igniting that there's no hedgehogs snoozing in the middle of the pile?
Unfortunately bonfires-in-the-preparation are very attractive to the spiny chaps, and once they're burned to death they are no good at eating slugs 'n' stuff.
Always assuming that CO2 is the cause of global warming and not the result of it. Since people have spent thousands of years heating & cooking over wood fires, its a wonder humanity has survived.
So, as Keith said, how come all the ex boy scouts aren't brown bread then? Are kippers & BBQ food lethal as well?
They are if my Missus cooks them :-)
Burning timber which grew in the last 1000 years isn't an issue. It's burning timber which is 100's millions of years old and releases carbon which has been locked up since the Carboniferous period which is alledged by some to increase CO2 and cause climate change (not global warming).
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