For reference, there are places where this kind of MEDC recreational wood-burning is illegal, and it is easily enforceable without causing other problems. For example (I'm not sure of the specifics), but wood-burning is illegal in built-up areas of the UK. It's pretty trivially enforceable actually - if a police officer happens to see smoke coming out of a chimney, they'll knock on the door and ask you to put it out. There's not a lot of potential for 'underground' wood-burning, and the law has pretty good public support, since in London smogs killed literally thousands of people at a time, in living memory.
Yup. My Dad will tell of the great smog in '52 if you ask him.
Note that it's still possible to burn 'smokeless' fuels, including some forms of treated wood IIRC, very high quality coal & it's perfectly ok to burn wood in a high-temperature wood burning stove, which are much cleaner than an open fire.
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I knew about the Great Smog of 1952 from, uh, science fiction (Neil Gaiman's novelization of _Neverwhere_) but it had not occurred to me to wonder why my recently built flat does not have a fireplace.
Apparently my colleagues all know this — everyone just knows that it's OK to burn smokeless coal (anthracite) but not wood.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_control_area