A compendium of news and commentary about wood burning collected (mostly) from around North America. If you see a relevant item that doesn't appear here, please post it in the comments section below.

EPA’s Burn Wise Campaign Seeks to Reduce Wood Smoke Pollution
EPA has established the Burn Wise campaign to reduce wood smoke pollution, helping to protect your home, health and the air we breathe, while keeping those who use wood for heat warm throughout the winter.

Modern wood stoves burn cleaner, Wenatchee, WA
Light a fire in your wood stove, and you can feel the magic. Right? Such as the satisfying crackle of split dry fir, the almost-instant heat to thaw your half-frozen backside and the picturesque plume rising skyward from the chimney to ... uh-oh.  There goes the magic — poof — in a cloud of smoke. In this age of eco-awareness, smoke from wood-burning devices is an environmental culprit that must be reckoned with — in your body, in your home and in the great outdoors.

Burning the home fires is a crime on bad air nights in Bay Area
During the cold weather season beginning Sunday and lasting through Feb. 28, the air district will announce at 2 p.m. when the predicted air quality is bad enough to institute a ban starting at midnight and lasting for 24 hours.
Last year, the air district sent out 254 warning letters to people whom pollution inspectors witnessed burning on Spare the Air nights. Contra Costa and Marin counties tied for the most warning notices, with 55 sent out in each county.

Hartland Township (MI) restricts outdoor furnaces
The ordinance mandates that wood furnaces in the township must only be installed in the Conservation Agricultural District on a lot or parcel 10 acres or larger. The ordinance mandates that permitted fuels be used in wood furnaces — including firewood and untreated lumber — and that an outdoor furnace shall be at least 100 feet from the nearest lot line. The chimney must extend at least 15 feet above the grade plane and at least two feet higher than the highest roof peak within 500 feet.

Home Green Home: Burning Wisely
New York Times
Indeed, beyond their iconic ambiance, traditional masonry fireplaces reach efficiency levels of only 20 to 30 percent when fully ablaze. That means 70 to 80 percent of the heat generated by the fire is being lost up the chimney. When the flames die down, efficiency can drop below 10 percent. A wood-burning stove is an improvement, but the agency estimates that 75 percent of the 12 million stoves in use in the United States are woefully inefficient — and polluting. They don’t have to be.

New technology makes woodstoves more environmentally friendly
A third of all Canadian households have a wood burning appliance and many of these choose to use this locally available, renewable green energy source as their primary heating fuel. For many residents of Muskoka and elsewhere, it is by far and away the most cost-effective way of heating their homes and for many others represents the only emergency backup heat during our all-too-frequent hydro outages.

Pursuing the right to be private
In Muskoka, Ontario - cottage country, of all places - there was a furious debate last month on the website of the Huntsville Forester newspaper, about the urgency of a local ban on all wood-burning in fireplaces and stoves.  Proponents of a ban cite the toxic nature of wood smoke and its role in causing cancer and other illnesses.  Such bans are already coming into force in the San Francisco Bay area and other jurisdictions.

Wood Smoke/black Carbon Soot: a Major Cause of Global Warming
According to Stanford environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, “Soot, or black carbon, may be responsible for 15 to 30 percent of global warming, yet it is not even considered in any of the discussions about controlling climate change.” (“Nature”, ScienceDaily, Feb. 9, 2001).  Jacobson also observed that human beings produce most of the soot particles that pollute the atmosphere.  He maintains that soot consists primarily of elemental carbon and that 90 percent of it comes from the consumption of fossil fuels (particularly coal, diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, kerosene) and the burning of wood and other biomass.  Jacobson also claims that a worldwide reduction in soot emissions and controlling biomass burning could quell the alarming pace of global warming and also reduce our reliance on soot-producing fuels.

Stanford Professor Urges EPA to Include Black Carbon in Endangerment Finding
Although black carbon from motor vehicles is already regulated under vehicle PM emission rules due to known PM health effects, such regulations still permit substantial BC emissions, and the climate effects of such emissions are significant.
Thus, reducing soot in isolation could eliminate one-third of net warming to date. Whereas, the US emits approximately 21% of the world’s anthropogenic CO2, it emits approximately 6.1% of its soot. However, the warming due to US soot exceeds that due to US methane or nitrous oxide, both of which are included in the endangerment portfolio.

Wood burning still an attractive home option for many
Modern wood-burning devices burn up the smoke inside the stove, either by superheating the air inside with the use of baffles or by the addition of a catalyst. Both designs have advantages and disadvantages but the big point to remember is both burn extremely cleanly.
While some smoke is visible anytime a fireplace or wood stove is first lit, a properly burning high-efficiency unit will quickly heat up. As it does, the visible smoke coming out the chimney disappears.