Ned England Reviews Regional Air Quality Alert, Concludes Haze Is Coming From A Fire Pit Three Houses Down
"The DNR is welcome to their theory," says England, 70, who has measured the pit, photographed the pit, and cited the pit under Section 5-2-8 of the municipal code.
WAUKESHA — The Wisconsin DNR extended an air quality alert Saturday for all of southeast Wisconsin, warning that smoke from Canadian and Minnesota wildfires could push the region's Air Quality Index into the "Unhealthy" and "Very Unhealthy" ranges through at least noon Monday. The agency's advisory covers roughly 2.3 million people across eleven counties.
Ned England has reviewed the advisory and respectfully disagrees with its scope.
"The DNR is welcome to their theory," England, 70, said Saturday from his lawn chair, which was facing away from the sky and toward a house three doors down. "I'm not saying Canada isn't burning. I'm saying I have documentation of something a lot closer, and nobody at the state level has returned my call."
England, known to the 420 subscribers of his YouTube channel Nedventuresout and, separately, to the three subscribers of his smoke-only channel Nedsmokedout, believes a significant portion of the haze over Backslide Way originates from a fire pit in the backyard of his neighbor Dennis Kabara, 58. On Saturday evening he laid out the case in a 44-minute Nedsmokedout video titled "SOURCE IDENTIFIED (BACKSLIDE WAY INVESTIGATION)", which drew 61 concurrent live viewers, a record for either channel.
Ned England's smoke coverage continues on Nedsmokedout. His regular neighborhood documentation remains, smoke-free, on Nedventuresout.
Visit @nedVenturesOut →The Case Against The Pit
City ordinance is central to England's argument, and he would like it read into the record. Under Section 5-2-8 of the Waukesha municipal code, open burning is prohibited inside the city. Recreational fires are legal only in a proper fire pit, only between 3 p.m. and midnight, and only at least 25 feet from any structure.
England's investigation, conducted July 11 with a 100-foot tape measure and an assistant, found the distance from the rim of Kabara's pit to the corner of Kabara's own shed to be 23 feet 6 inches.
"That is 18 inches of violation," England said. "People hear 18 inches and think it's small. It is not small. It is 6 percent."
He has also photographed, and timestamped, a fire in the pit on the evening of July 11 that he says was lit at 2:47 p.m., 13 minutes before the legal window opens. "So that's an illegal fire in a noncompliant pit," England said. "At that point, per the ordinance, what you have is an open burn. And now, one week later, the entire region is under an air advisory. I'm not saying those two facts are connected. I'm presenting them in order."
"I'm not saying Canada isn't burning. I'm saying it has help locally."
— Ned England, Nedsmokedout, Day 4
Asked how one residential fire pit could account for a haze event covering eleven counties, England was quiet for a moment.
"It has to start somewhere," he said.
Four Lampposts
England's own data does show conditions worsening. Under the visibility methodology he introduced last week, in which he counts how many of the nine lampposts along the Fox River path he can distinguish from the center of the Frame Park pedestrian bridge, Sunday morning's count was four.
"A five-lamppost event," England said. "Worst on record. The record is four days old, but it's a record."
The measurement trip was documented for Nedsmokedout, and England confirmed he wore the N95 mask he purchased in 2020 and continues to describe as "still good." He was firm on one point, and asked that it be printed plainly: people in sensitive groups should limit time outdoors until the alert lifts, "regardless of whose smoke it is. The air doesn't care who made it. Stay in. Watch the video."
The Measurement Was A Family Effort
The July 11 tape-measure operation required two people, one at the pit end of the lawn, one at the shed. England's son Trevor held the shed end.
"It was 23 and a half," Trevor England confirmed. "I wrote it down for him. He also had me write it down a second time in a different notebook. He calls that redundancy."
England's other son Troy, who rents the upper unit of England's duplex, was visible in an upstairs window for a portion of Saturday's livestream but declined to be interviewed for this story, saying through the window screen, "I rent. Talk to the landlord."
The City Has Measured
A Waukesha Fire Department crew visited Backslide Way on Thursday in response to what a department spokesperson characterized as "multiple contacts from one resident." The crew measured Kabara's fire pit at 26 feet 2 inches from the nearest structure, measuring, per department practice, from the pit itself rather than from the outer edge of the decorative gravel border England had used as his starting point.
The crew further noted that the pit was cold, that no fire had been observed at the residence since July 11, and that the current haze was, in the spokesperson's words, "continental in origin."
England has logged the department's findings in his notebook under the heading "INCONCLUSIVE."
"They measured from the pit," he said. "I measured from where the pit begins. Those are different philosophies. I respect their measurement. I have mine."
Kabara, for his part, seemed mostly unbothered when reached in his driveway. He confirmed the pit came from Fleet Farm, that he burns "seasoned oak, nothing weird," and that he had not lit a fire in over a week on account of the air quality, "which, and I want to be clear about this, is from the wildfires."
He paused, then added: "He does know Canada is on fire, right? Somebody's told him?"
"I respect their measurement. I have mine."
— Ned England, on the fire department's finding that the pit is legal
Toward the end of Saturday's interview, a car passed on Backslide Way. England reached beneath the lawn chair for the radar gun, clocked it at 26, and wrote the number down.
"That's for the other channel," he said.