Helpful tips to improve our air quality
- Don’t drive on the shoulder of the road.
- Sprinkle a thin layer of water or wait until after recent rainfall before sweeping driveways and/or patios.
- Drive slowly on gravel roads.
- Limit the use of recreational vehicles (e.g. dirt bikes, ATVs, UTVs) on gravel pathways during long spells of dry weather.
- Take the bus, walk, or ride a bike for short trips.
- Plan ahead and combine errands. Park and walk instead of driving to each location.
- Don’t idle a car. Turn off vehicles when not in use.
- Carpool whenever possible.
- Swap out old wood stoves for more efficient appliances.
- If wood-burning appliances must be used, burn dry, seasoned firewood in clean stoves and/or fireplaces that are cleaned regularly and meet EPA and CSA regulations.
- Clean barbecue grills and other outdoor cooking appliances often.
- Insulate properly. Install vapour barriers, caulk or weather-strip cracks and holes, and doors and windows.
- Close heating vents and doors to rooms that are not being used.
- Replace old windows with more energy-efficient ones.
- Use a fan instead of an air conditioner in the summer and dress in layers during the winter instead of using heat.
Clean Air Bylaw regulations
- No person shall use a wood burning appliance at any time during an air quality advisory unless it is their sole source of heat.
- No person shall operate a wood-burning appliance in such a manner to significantly contribute to the cause of injury or damage to human health, plant or animal life or so as to unreasonably interfere with the enjoyment of life or property.
- No person shall install a hydronic heater (outdoor wood boiler) on any property in the City of Prince George.
- No person shall install a wood-burning appliance in or about any premise unless it meets the particulate emission requirements of the Canadian standard or the US standard.
- No person shall cause or allow any substance to be burned in any wood-burning appliance other than seasoned (minimum six months) wood fuel. Garbage or other noxious material is not allowed.
Open burning is not allowed in the City of Prince George (excluding recreational fires) at any time on any property within municipal boundaries. This includes the burning of grass, leaves, tree material, and land clearing debris.
The definition of open burning is the combustion in the open air of yard and garden waste, land clearing debris, or any other material, including burning of any of these materials in a container (including burn barrels). This does not include the burning of gas, propane or charcoal in a barbeque or hibachi for the purpose of cooking food.
- A recreational fire must be contained in a permanent outdoor fireplace or fire pit not larger than 60 centimetres in diameter that is designed and constructed to confine the fire.
- No person shall have a recreational fire if an air quality advisory has been issued. If the fire was started prior to the issuance of the air quality advisory, that person shall take all reasonable steps to extinguish the fire within an hour of the advisory being issued.
- No person shall burn yard and garden waste, garbage or noxious materials. Only seasoned wood (dried a minimum of six months) may be burned.
- No person shall maintain a recreational fire in such a manner to significantly contribute to the cause of injury or damage to human health, plant or animal life or so as to unreasonably interfere with the enjoyment of life or property.
- All persons maintaining a recreational fire shall be competent to do so, continuously control and supervise the fire, and possess at the site extinguishing equipment appropriate for the size of the fire.
- The recreational fire shall not be allowed to come within three (3) meters of any property line, fence, standing timber, brush, or building.
- No person shall sweep or maintain any highway or off-street parking, loading or storage areas except with the use of equipment, using fugitive dust control procedures or dust suppressing liquids (prior to and during sweeping in amounts sufficient to minimize the generation of dust).
- No person shall undertake any sweeping or maintenance of highway or off-street parking, loading or storage areas at any time when an air quality advisory is in effect unless approved by an Authorized Person on the basis that dust suppression measures satisfactory to the Authorized Person will be taken to control fugitive dust.
- All off-street parking, loading and storage areas, sand and gravel pits, demolition sites, construction sites and highways must be maintained so the dust does not escape in such a manner as to cause injury or interfere with the enjoyment of life or property.