Newport may seek end to required charcoal-burning fire rings

Newport Beach city leaders Tuesday will consider sending a letter to the South Coast Air Quality Management District requesting that its board repeal rule amendments that led the city to require charcoal-burning fire rings.

The challenge of how to configure fire rings in Newport Beach was sparked in July 2013, when the AQMD amended its Rule 444 to require a 700-foot buffer between bonfires and homes and to designate “no-burn days” when fine particulates are at unhealthy levels.

The policy is a softened version of a proposal that would have banned all beach bonfires in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

In response to the AQMD’s actions, Newport Beach began enforcing an ordinance that limited fuel in fire rings to charcoal, which the air-quality agency considers cleaner-burning than wood.

However, the California Coastal Commission said it did not approve of the change because charcoal is more expensive than wood and might deter people from using the rings. One of the agency’s responsibilities is to help maintain low-cost activities on the coast.

The Coastal Commission last summer agreed to Newport’s plan for reconfiguring 64 beach fire rings, allowing more than half of them to burn wood and the others to burn charcoal.

The possible request for the AQMD rule change stems from the city’s struggle to enforce rules on the type of fuel that can be burned in the rings. The city spends about $165,000 per year for a private security firm to monitor fuel use at the Balboa Pier and Corona del Mar State Beach, according to a city staff report.

“If the rings were returned to the older placement and the charcoal requirement removed, arguably all of those resources could be saved,” the staff report states. “Staff believes that the current plan’s enforcement is costly and generally makes fire ring users unhappy.”

If the AQMD agrees to repeal the amendments to Rule 444, the city would have to seek an amendment to its permit from the Coastal Commission. The AQMD has not indicated whether it intends to change the rule.

Several neighbors of fire rings have long urged the city and other government agencies to maintain charcoal-burning rings, citing respiratory problems and carcinogens stemming from wood smoke.

“We are gravely concerned that there may be a reintroduction of additional wood-burning rings or the expansion of any number of wood-burning rings further into areas close to residential zones or areas frequented by children or seniors,” Balboa Peninsula resident Denys Oberman wrote in a letter to the City Council. “This would be a position adverse to public health and safety.”

Tuesday’s council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 100 Civic Center Drive.