Its gonna turn out to be where Obama is going to ban wood burners just like he is guns:mad2::mad2::mad2:
Please tell me about this mad conspriracy? I've not heard about guns. I think he's smart enough not to go there.
I've not heard about banning burning wood either. That seems to be more of a state thing. More local. Maybe even a county thing in our fair state of Washington.
Oh, and here's the story on how slash burning became regulated more.
We used to have a lot more logging here. Logging as in clearcutting. Clearcuts up to 40 acres were legal on National Forests. I do not know what the rules were for private land. We were also cutting the old growth. That meant trees with big limbs and lots of limbs. You could be walking on slash that was 6 feet deep. Your feet did not hit the ground. That slash had to be burned so the units could be replanted. That was and is the law.
Spring burning became popular. Burning in the Fall meant that the snow would soon arrive to put out the smolderion stumps and snags, but Fall burning was harder on the soils. Because the slash was dry from sitting through the Summer heat, the fire burned hotter, and destroyed more of the soil organisms that make the soil productive.
So, a switch was made to burn in the Spring--late May, June and even into July. The large sized fuels would have more moisture in them as would the soil, and you would not get the scorched earth problems. The big cull logs left in the units provide habitat for critters and when decayed, build up the soil. We'd literally be following the snow melt up in elevation, burning as it melted--with a few days to dry of course.
There was a beautiful weekend. We got called in to burn, as did every other crew in W. Warshington. Mushroom clouds galore were going. Then, the wind shifted. The smoke from all these burns was blown over Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle. They got what our local communities got and put up with. We were logging/sawmill communities and put up with a few days of smoke. They were not. The complaints began.
Olympia is our state capitol. Rules were made. No more burning on weekends or holidays. Burners must get clearance from a newly created smoke management agency....and so on. That's how rules get made.
Burning added jobs to our community. We burned, the timber buyers supplied the fireline builders and mop up crews. It was a busy time for us.
Now, there isn't much call for it. Second or third growth is loggged. Trees can be sent up to the landings with limbs attached and a processor or delimber limbs the trees and bucks them up. The small slash is left in the unit to help protect the soils.
There are landing piles to burn, but with biomass starting up, even those may become a thing of the past.
That's the story. I'm thinking it happened around 1987.
you may want to read where pretty much everything that needed to be said, was said about this topic. 
