Posted on 04/03/2025 5:00:47 PM PDT by dangus
So not too long ago, I moved to Appalachia. For the most part, it's great. Except my wife and son both have been having persistent allergies and lethargy because the locals are CONSTANTLY burning fires in their backyards. They look like campfires: they're not in picnic grills or brick ovens or smokers, but there's always some sort of firesite. They're left unattended almost always.
Can anyone tell me what's going on? My wife thinks it's some sort of folk spirit-cleansing ritual, but these people are all supposedly Christians. Her other notion is its for health, but having the air constantly stink of fire can't be healthy. What gives?
I am from SE KY (Appalachian Mountain area) and yea, it’s either burning trash or this time of year, we’d always burn off all the brush from the garden from the previous year to get ready for planting. Or .. cooking Meth
They burn trash rather than pay for a garbage pickup service.
They don’t burn fires as much as you make it seem.
Are there public utilities there, water and sewer?...............
With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder the lifespan is 10 years shorter. Burning 19th century waste: probably healthy and natural. Burning 21st century waste: the best way to make the deadliest sorts of toxic fumes imaginable.
>> Are there public utilities there, water and sewer?............... <<
Yup. And taxpayer-supported trash pickup!
Food scraps go into compost. Trash goes into a trash burner. Or dumped in a ditch. No municipal garbage service in the hollers. Some counties will station dumpsters at locations where folks can haul their trash. That brings other problems.
Maybe you should consider moving some place like Baltimore or New York City or Chicago.
Folks in rural areas don’t take kindly to city folk who move in and want to raise taxes to support city services.
So nobody has a septic tank?...........
My home is within the city limits, of a fantastically gerrymandered city. Some people are outside the city limits. But the county also operates free disposal centers. They’d have to haul it there.
My father used to burn leaves just in a pile on the ground when I was a kid. Outside the pile just dirt yard raked clean. We didn’t have a lawn. That was on Long Island. I wonder if the rest of the country did back then as well and this area has simply continued to do this.
In the same years the local officials, not sure who, used to spray fogs of DDT.
I don’t know that NO-ONE has a septic tank. There are city water and sewer services on the road I’m on, but I don’t know if EVERYONE uses them.
... and halfway into Georgia.
Ask one of your neighbors.
Yes, I have a fire pit.
Neighbors and friends gather around the fire
and drink various adult beverages
and discuss nuclear physics and solve world problems.
Burning trash. No trash service in some areas, no $$ for it where there is.
Burning trash, up until it was outlawed here in rural Calif that’s what we did.
In places where septic tanks are common, it is normal for people to burn the toilet paper because it would clog the septic tank.............
We lived near a major general aviation airport with a fair amount of jet traffic. We had people in our town complain about airport noise, as well as the people in the town next door where it’s located, who bought houses right next to it.
Now realize this place started out as a WWII training base, so it has been there longer than almost anyone complaining has been alive. So anyone complaining bought their house long after the fact of the airport.
I once engaged the airport general manager to come speak at our Rotary club. I get his admin on the phone, tell her my name, that I’d like to speak to the GM, and that I’m NOT calling to complain about airport noise. She starts laughing and puts me right through to him, I use the same line, he starts laughing. Signed him right up as a speaker.
Bonfires are regular where I live.
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