One fire operating an hour burning ten pounds of wood will generate 4,300 times more carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons than thirty cigarettes.

Breathing smoke from 1 stick of wood is equivalent to smoking up to 16 cigarettes.

Washington State ranks fifth in the nation for the prevalence of asthma. One person dies every fourth day due to asthma-related causes.

Infants exposed to wood smoke have higher risk of Asthma Diagnosis by age 5. Most who have Asthma now had been exposed to wood smoke early in life.

Childhood asthma is 1 in every 10 children. Adult Asthma is increasing dramatically every year.

Lung cancer (even among non-cigarette smokers) is the hardest to treat, diagnose early, has the lowest/shortest survival rate among all cancers. Tobacco use has dropped, smoking is banned in public places, but Lung Cancer is the number one cause of cancer death. Wood smoke air pollution is one of the causes for the increase.

When smoke levels go up so do deaths, expensive prescription drug use, emergency room visits. We all pay higher medical costs and insurance premiums because of wood smoke.

80% of the air pollution in many areas isn’t industry or traffic. It is wood smoke from residential and recreational wood burning.

Smoke stresses the immune system making it harder to prevent or recover from any disease; from a cold to Cancer.

Burning two cords of wood produces the same amount of mutagenic particles as: Driving 13 gasoline powered cars 10,000 miles each at 20 miles/gallon or driving 2 diesel powered cars 10,000 miles each @ 30 miles/gallon. These figures indicate the worst contribution that an individual makes to the mutagenicity of the air is using a wood stove for heating.

Free radicals from wood smoke are chemically active for twenty minutes; tobacco smoke radicals are chemically active for thirty seconds. Wood smoke attacks our body’s cells up to forty times longer then tobacco smoke.

Wood smoke particles are tiny they seep into houses through closed doors, windows, light fixtures, under baseboards, wall plugs, any small crack. Furnace and exhaust fans pull smoke into homes. Furnace filters, weather-stripping, insulation doesn’t stop smoke. A recent study shows that wood smoke pollution indoors can reach up to 70 percent of the outside pollution level in homes which do not burn wood. Neighbors of wood burners breathe smoky air. Schools, hospitals, no public place can keep out wood smoke.

Wood smoke chemicals and particulates can stay near the ground for up to three weeks and can travel up to 700 miles from the source. It can be in the air harming health even when the smell isn’t easily discernable.

Tens of thousands are harmed and die yearly from breathing wood smoke. See BurningIssues org, for scientific medical research about the serious health consequences of breathing carbon soot, particulates and toxic chemicals in wood smoke.

Camp fires are also great for cooking. Have a look at this article on building a campfire for cooking:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2097831_build-campfire-cooking.html