But try having a fire in your fireplace in the Bay Area and you will have the fireplace police on you like white on rice.
One of my neighbors gets away with it here in South SF. He is constantly burning trash in his fireplace, which stinks up the neighborhood. I'm not talking regular firewood. He literally burns trash that includes plastics. He picks up scrap wood from various sources that is painted or was treated as exterior wood with chemicals.
How he gets away with it: for years he has said the fireplace is his only source of heat. And burns even on the hottest days. There's the exemption, just claim your furnace is broken and you get away with burning toxic garbage.