Pressure is on Carmel City Council to ban wood-burning beach fires in favor of propane.

Jeanne McCulloch grew up roasting marshmallows over bonfires on Carmel Beach and doesn’t want to see the tradition disappear. But as much as she loves it, even she agrees fires got out of hand on July 4, 2015, when there were more than 100 crowding the white sand. Residents say smoke that drifted up to Scenic Drive was so thick it was hard to breathe and made their eyes water. It was a breaking point in a debate that started around 2009 in Carmel over whether to limit or ban beach fires.

In 2016, Carmel City Council approved a two-year pilot program restricting the number of wood-burning fires to 12 during the hours of 4-10pm, from April to October. Placement and distance requirements realistically only allowed for nine. City staff later tried to limit smoke even further by installing so-called “smokeless” fire rings. An unlimited number of propane fires were also allowed.

The pilot got off to a rough start when the Soberanes Fire that year meant a temporary ban on fires. In 2017, storms stripped so much sand from the beach it delayed setting out fire rings. Those obstacles limited the city’s ability to collect data, according to California Coastal Commission Planner Michael Watson. Last year, the Coastal Commission approved extending the pilot to Nov. 1, 2020, ignoring an appeal by a resident who wanted the pilot to allow propane-only.

The pilot limitations worked: Data from three air monitors installed near Carmel Beach by the Monterey Bay Air Resources Board last summer shows particulate matter below federal standards.

That isn’t good enough for some residents who argue any amount of wood smoke is hazardous. With few wood fires proponents present, opponents pushed hard for propane-only restrictions at two public meetings last month, calling it a compromise.

“The women will keep their breasts, we will all keep our lungs,” Denise Otterson told the Carmel Forest and Beach Commission on April 11. “All of our organs will be blessed by clean air.”

Despite such testimony, the commission voted 4-0 to continue the wood fire pilot program, with further restrictions. Commissioners recommended six fire pits and additional monitoring, as well as investigating a reservation or fee-based system – while admitting the move would further suppress wood-burning fires.

Forest and Beach Commissioner Darlene Mosley said if it were her beach, there’d be “no fires, no propane, nothing. But it’s not my beach.”

“It’s a good point,” countered Commissioner Michael Caddell. “It’s not our beach, it doesn’t belong to any of us. It’s a public beach in California.”

It was a different story the night earlier, when propane-only advocates held sway before the Planning Commission, which voted 4-1 in favor of banning all wood fires for the remainder of the pilot program. With conflicting recommendations from those two commissions, City Council is scheduled to review the pilot on May 7.

McCulloch led the charge in 2015 to keep wood fires on Carmel Beach with removeable fire rings. Now, she’s rallying others to speak up on May 7 to keep at least a few fire pits: “It would be really sad to see a tradition like this disappear.”