Air district moves ahead on Newport Beach plan for fire pits
Air quality officials on Friday approved $600,000 for contractors to design and install gas fire rings on public beaches, taking a new step in the fight over hundreds of wood-burning fire pits on Los Angeles and Orange County coast.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District will pay two companies about $24,000 per unit to build more than two dozen gas or propane-burning fire pits.
The vote came after Newport Beach officials agreed last week to eliminate more than half of the city’s fire pits and replace some with cleaner, gas-fueled rings to reduce smoke drifting into shorefront homes. The city made that decision over the objections of the California Coastal Commission, which says cutting the number of fire rings would deprive the public of a low-cost use of the beach.
Coastal regulators, who oversee land use and public access along the state’s shoreline, oppose the air district’s restrictions on fire pits and say Newport Beach needs the state’s permission before removing any fire pits or installing gas rings. Commission staff is also voicing safety concerns about placing gas lines under beaches, where they could be damaged by storms and beach grooming.
The air district selected Earth’s Flame Inc., based in Corona, and Blazing Design Inc., of Vermont, to design prototype devices that will burn either natural gas or propane. One proposal will retrofit existing fire rings with metal grates and ceramic logs and another would build new ones based on models already found in backyards and mountain resorts.
“It’s not much of a stretch to do that in a beach environment,” said Matt Miyasato, the air district’s deputy executive officer for science and technology advancement. “All of the concerns over safety, we’re going to address those as we work through the development of the prototypes,” he added.
Newport Beach is the only community that has offered to host gas fire rings, but in the coming months air quality officials will seek city, county and state agencies willing to try them out over a 12-month period.
Newport Beach officials say they have many details to work out, including who will pay for the fuel and how much it will cost. But one option under consideration is a meter system to charge individual users.
“We need to be cognizant that this is intended to be a low-cost amenity,” Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff said in an email. “Fortunately, natural gas is fairly inexpensive now.”
The project marks the latest phase in a dispute that has put the public health concerns of coastal residents at odds with many beachgoers, who say the air district’s regulations are snuffing out a beloved California tradition.
The clash started last year when the Newport Beach City Council voted to get rid of all 60 of its wood-burning fire rings and the Coastal Commission came out against the plan. Air regulators stepped in with a proposal last spring to ban all open fires on L.A. and Orange County beaches, raising an uproar from bonfire enthusiasts.
In July, the air district’s board approved rules that require buffer zones and spacing provisions starting next March to protect beachfront homeowners from bonfire smoke. Though the region’s 765 beach fire pits are responsible for only a trivial amount of the region’s pollution, air quality officials argue they are a serious health concern locally. One wood-burning fire ring emits as much fine particulate pollution as three diesel trucks, they say.
A group known as Friends of the Fire Rings filed suit against the air district last week over the regulations. The Newport Beach-based organization contends the rules are arbitrary and were crafted not for health reasons, but to let cities like Huntington Beach that welcome visitors keep their fire pits while allowing the removal of nearly all wood-burning rings in Newport Beach, where they face the most opposition from locals.
The air district’s low-emission fire rings will be paid for with money set aside for projects to cut air pollution, including the fine particles found in diesel exhaust and bonfire smoke, which are linked to asthma, bronchitis and lung cancer.
Newport Beach anticipates spending $100,000 to $200,000 a year to enforce proper use of the new fire rings. If the gas-fueled models are successful, the city could eventually remove all of its traditional fire pits. Huntington Beach, in contrast, will be allowed to keep nearly all of its 530 fire rings under AQMD’s rules.
