SEELEY LAKE - Seeley Lake's winter air quality has improved since the community successfully replaced more than 160 old wood stoves with new, lower emission stoves during the 2012-2014 wood stove change out program. The Seeley Lake "Number of Winter Day Over 24-Hour PM2.5 Standard" graph shows that PM2.5 concentrations are trending down over the last nine winters. (Note: The winter of 2016-2017 had a long-lasting high-pressure ridge that caused high PM2.5 levels throughout western Montana.)
Despite these overall improvements, wood stove smoke continues to be a significant source of air pollution in the valley. As you can see in the chart, some winters continue to see multiple days of poor air quality. Fortunately, following simple tips from the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association (HPBA) can reduce smoke from individual wood stoves. As an added bonus, these tips will help your wood stove burn more efficiently and reduce the amount of wood needed to heat your home! For more information, check out HPBA's video here: https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/burn-wise-best-practices-videos.
HPBA's Five Rules for an Efficient Fire:
• Begin with a hot fire to provide enough heat to the chimney to start the draft: Both catalytic and non-catalytic stoves require the fire to reach a certain temperature to burn cleanly and effectively.
• Use only dry, seasoned wood: Using wet or green wood is like throwing water on the fire.
• Use plenty of kindling: Enough kindling at ignition is essential to building a hot fire!
• Don't use big pieces of wood when you start the fire: Big pieces of wood will take too long to light and will probably smolder. Add several pieces of smaller, split wood to the kindling. Once the fire gets hot, you can add larger pieces of wood.
• Give the fire enough air: Fire needs a lot of air, so make sure the air controls are fully open when starting the fire. After lighting the kindling, crack the stove door slightly for the first five minutes of the burn to increase airflow and turbulence.
If you follow these tips, once your fire is going, you should see only heat waves and water vapor coming from your chimney!
For information on current wood stove technologies and best burn practices, check out the EPA Burn Wise Program web pages at http://www.epa.gov/burnwise. This site has links to many sources of information including videos by HPBA on how to burn efficiently.
The Missoula City-County Health Department encourages people to use good burn practices to reduce pollution in the home and outside. A hot, clean-burning fire reduces particulate pollution and other air toxics such as acrolein and formaldehyde that enter your home whenever you open the wood stove's door. Properly maintaining your stove and making sure it has good seals will reduce smoke-related air pollution in your home.
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