State law bans burning anything in fireplaces other than wood or paper needed to start a blaze in the state of Washington.

But south of the Columbia River, burn season is open season on any fuel you like. In Oregon it's legal to burn garbage, plastic, paint, chemicals, even animal carcasses.

KGW photo

"The law has just never been clear," says David Collier, air quality planning manager for Oregon's Department of Environmental quality. "That's one of the things I'd like to fix."

This year, D.E.Q. is asking lawmakers in Salem to pass a law restricting what people may burn in fireplaces and wood stoves.

More: Do wood stoves burn cleaner than cast iron?

According to state air quality specialists, smoke pollution is particularly acute in the winter months. D.E.Q. estimates more than 420,000 homes in Oregon use wood stoves regularly. But more than half of them still use old stoves without any pollution controls built in.

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Collier says, "Collectively, hundreds of thousands of them can all add up to a very big source of air pollution."

Analysis shows that wood smoke is the primary source for fine particulate pollution around the state. It dwarfs all other sources. 78% of fine particle pollution comes from smoke. The next largest source is non-road vehicles which contribute just 7%.

Wood smoke contains hundreds of toxic compounds including benzene and tars similar to those in cigarette smoke. The particles are so fine, smaller than 2.5 microns, they easily pass through human nasal filters and imbed themselves in peoples' lungs. (A micron is 300 times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.)

Many of the toxics pose known risks for causing cancer in humans.

When garbage is burned, there's no telling what extra chemicals make it into the smoke.

Wood smoke fact sheet
Wood smoke and your health
Washington wood burning law

In Tigard, Diane Barton frequent smells the telltale odors of trash burning as she walks her neighborhood. She says she's tired of coming home with her clothes and her hair "smelling like a campfire."

As a health educator and a mother of an asthma patient, Barton's keenly aware of what we breathe. Barton says, "the particles from the smoke become so minute they can actually penetrate the lung tissue."

D.E.Q.'s Collier agrees it's a serious health threat. "The smoke can actually come back in your homes," says Collier. "So you're breathing it. Your neighbors are breathing it. It's just an unhealthy idea all around."

Until lawmakers close the loophole that allows anything to burn in a fireplace, Collier has a simple request. "Don't use your fireplace or woodstove as a garbage disposal."